‘Purpose' wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tony Awards next?
Just four days after earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Play and five more citations for its cast members, Purpose has just won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Today's announcement of the finalists and winner by Columbia University described Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' work as "a play about the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper-middle class African American family whose patriarch was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement. A skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage."
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Cole Escola's Oh, Mary! also received recognition as a finalist for the Pulitzer. Columbia described the play as "a zany portrait of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's family life, whose outrageous humor also serves as an empathetic celebration of anyone who's been marginalized or misunderstood." Escola's riotous spoof took off-Broadway and now Broadway by storm and earned Tony nominations for Best Play, two of its cast members, costume design, and director Sam Pinkleton.
The Best Play category at the 2025 Tonys now boasts two winners and one finalist for the Pulitzer, as nominee English by Sanaz Toossi received the honor back in 2023. This lineup, which also features Kimberly Belflower's John Proctor Is the Villain and Jez Butterworth's The Hills of California, is now one of the most luminous groups in Tony history. Two years ago, the Best Play category boasted three Pulitzer winners: Fat Ham by James Ijames, Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis, and Cost of Living by Martyna Majok. This year is also only the third time in Tony history where two Pulitzer winners have been nominated in the same year. This first happened in 1956 when The Diary of Anne Frank and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof both earned Tony nominations (the former won) and then occurred once more in 2004 when Anna in the Tropics and I Am My Own Wife were both nominated (the latter prevailed).
SEE Tony Talk: Breaking down those surprise nominations and early winner predictions for 'Maybe Happy Ending,' 'Sunset Boulevard,' and more
Now that Purpose has claimed one of the most coveted titles in American letters, does it have a better chance at winning the Tony Award for Best Play? Not necessarily, according to Tony history. Over the past 77 years, there have been 37 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama also nominated at the Tonys, from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the third annual ceremony, to Guirgis, Ijames, and Majok's plays in 2023. Of those 37 works, 17 won both the Pulitzer and the Tony, a sizable number but not quite a majority.
Like Oh, Mary!, there have been 15 previous finalists for the Pulitzer that have also been nominated at the Tony Awards. The first was Neil Simon's Broadway Bound in 1987, which starred the late Linda Lavin in her Tony-winning role, and the most recent was Tracy Letts' The Minutes in 2022. Of those 15, six went on to win the Tony, a slightly lower rate of victory than for the Pulitzer winners.
Jacobs-Jenkins' recognition does suggest that the contest for Best Play might be a lot more competitive than many theater fans recognize. An overwhelming majority of our users are currently predicting Oh, Mary! to win, according to our combined odds, but Purpose fits the mold of serious, intellectual works that grapple with history that often prevail amongst Tony voters; farces and other comedies win far less frequently. But there are exceptions to this trend, as recent, weighty works like Lynn Nottage's Sweat and Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced have lost, too. An upset could be brewing, though, as one of our experts and one of our editors currently predict the win for Purpose.
SEE Instant Tony odds: 'Oh, Mary!' and 'Maybe Happy Ending' are the extremely early shows to beat
Ironically, all three playwrights recognized by Pulitzers today are 2025 Tony nominees. In addition to Jacobs-Jenkins and Escola, Itamar Moses was shortlisted for his off-Broadway work The Ally. Columbia described it as "a timely drama about activitism, conflicting expectations, and moral responsibility on a college campus, probing American identity and the contradictions within progressive politics using richly drawn characters with deep emotional resonance." Though The Ally has not bowed on Broadway, Moses received a Tony nomination this year in the Best Musical Book category for his libretto for Best Musical nominee Dead Outlaw. He is already leading our odds in the race and may receive an extra bump with the announcement. Moses previously received the Tony in the same category for The Band's Visit.
1. Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller – 1949 2. The Teahouse of the August Moon, John Patrick – 1954 3. The Diary of Anne Frank, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett – 1956 4. Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill – 1957 5. J. B., Archibald MacLeish – 1959 6. The Subject Was Roses, Frank D. Gilroy – 1965 7. The Great White Hope, Howard Sacklet – 1969 8. That Championship Season, Jason Miller – 1973 9. Fences, August Wilson – 1987 10. The Heidi Chronicles, Wendy Wasserstein – 1989 11. Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon – 1991 12. Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Tony Kushner – 1993 13. Proof, David Auburn – 2001 14. I Am My Own Wife, Doug Wright – 2004 15. Doubt, John Patrick Shanley – 2005 16. August: Osage County, Tracy Letts – 2008 17. Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris – 2012
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