Kara Young accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a featured role in a play for “Purpose” during the 78th Tony Awards on Sunday, June 8. AP

NEW YORK — The best new play trophy at Sunday’s Tony Awards went to “Purpose,” Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family exposing hypocrisy and pressures during a snowed-in gathering.

It caps a remarkable year for Jacobs-Jenkins, who in addition to winning back-to-back Tonys — his “Appropriate” won best play revival in 2024 — earned the Pulitzer Prize for “Purpose.” (That win came the day of the Met Gala, where he served on the host committee.) Jacobs-Jenkins becomes the first Black playwright to win for best new play since August Wilson took home the trophy in 1987 for “Fences.” With “Pur

See Full Page