Cast Announced for the Alliance’s Production of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play
Purpose
BY BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL GREIF
AUGUST 28 – SEPTEMBER 20, 2026
ON THE COCA-COLA STAGE
The Alliance Theatre today announced the cast of its upcoming production of PURPOSE. Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Keith Arthur Bolden, PURPOSE runs on The Coca-Cola Stage, August 28 – September 20, 2026. Opening night is Friday, September 4, 2026. This production of PURPOSE is co-produced with McCarter Theatre Center (January 21 – February 13, 2027).
In Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, the Jasper family is gathering for a long-overdue reunion. For decades, they’ve been the embodiment of Black political power and public virtue – a dynasty of ministers, activists, and changemakers whose legacy has shaped generations. But when a young outsider arrives with questions no one is prepared to answer, carefully guarded secrets begin to surface. Over the course of one unforgettable evening, old wounds reopen, loyalties are tested, and the truth threatens to upend everything the family has built. At once biting, hilarious, and deeply human, PURPOSE asks what we owe our families, our communities, and ourselves.
“I was raised in Los Angeles by Southern parents who gave me the church, gave me faith, and taught me that God would always be by my side. They also taught me that every life has purpose,” said Director Keith Arthur Bolden. “Purpose is the driving force of your life, and once you discover it, you can move forward with a certain freedom and clarity—as though you are finally on cruise control—because your steps are ordered and rooted in your truth. What I love about Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play is that it challenges us to ask who gets to define that purpose: our parents, our faith, our family’s legacy, or the quiet truth within ourselves. PURPOSE is funny, painful, deeply familiar, and filled with the kinds of questions Black families have carried from generation to generation.”
The cast of PURPOSE features Jerome Preston Bates (Broadway: Jitney, Netflix: Don’t Ever Wonder) as Solomon Jasper, Veanna Black (True Colors Theatre: Good Bad People, Film: Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight, National Geographic’s Genius) as Morgan Jasper, Donna Biscoe (Lifetime: Drop Dead Diva, TBS: Meet the Browns) as Claudine Jasper, Thomas Neal Antwon Ghant (Alliance Theatre: A Christmas Carol, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) as Junior Jasper, Victoria Omoregie (Alliance Theatre: Fat Ham, Bust) as Aziza Houston, and Travis Turner (Alliance Theatre: Seize the King, Goodnight, Tyler) as Nazareth Jasper. Understudies for the production include Robert John Connor, Sheri Gilbert-Wilson, Ashlee Rachel McNeil, Brittani H. Minnieweather, Charlie T. Thomas, and Roderick Whitney, Jr.
The creative team of PURPOSE is led by Director Keith Arthur Bolden and includes Kenny Leon Directing Fellow and Associate Director Denzel Taylor, Scenic Designer Sotirios Livaditis, Costume Designer Shilla Benning, Lighting Designer Ben Rawson, Composer Dwight Andrews, and Sound Designer Rasean Davonté Johnson.
Additional production support includes Stage Manager R. Lamar Williams, Assistant Stage Manager Phoebe Sweatman, Production Management Lead Haylee Scott, and Stage Management Production Assistant Myah Harper.
With PURPOSE, celebrated playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Appropriate, An Octoroon) delivers a thrilling, sharply observed drama about legacy, faith, and the courage it takes to confront the truth. This gripping and darkly funny drama has been described as “a thumping, riveting, guns-blazing, major new American play” (New York Daily News) that is “unstoppably fierce, funny, and ruthless!” (New York Post).
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