On an evening the place Broadway celebrated its brightest stars and most resonant tales, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Function emerged because the night’s crowning achievement, profitable the 2025 Tony Award for Finest Play. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, which first premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, marks a watershed second — not only for Jacobs-Jenkins, however for the evolution of American theater and the continued rise of Chicago as a cultural incubator.
Set within the coronary heart of Chicago, Function explores the intimate and infrequently uncomfortable dynamics of the Jasper household, a well-to-do Black family led by a outstanding pastor. The play invitations audiences into a house brimming with expectations, secrets and techniques, and generational rigidity. It’s a narrative about legacy and loss, religion and friction, and the invisible weight that comes with being seen as a mannequin of success — each publicly and privately.
Directed by the legendary Phylicia Rashad, the play’s Steppenwolf debut in 2024 was met with important acclaim. It featured a commanding ensemble solid that introduced humor, heartbreak, and humanity to Jacobs-Jenkins’s layered script. From its earliest performances, Function was acknowledged for doing one thing uncommon: holding up a mirror to Black excellence and peeling again the layers to disclose the messiness, vulnerability, and contradictions that always disguise beneath polished facades.
‘Function’ is well timed and timeless
With a story that touches on psychological well being, sexual id, incarceration, religious trauma, and familial duty, Function just isn’t solely well timed — it’s timeless. It confronts the complicated methods Black households navigate their existence in a world that calls for each perfection and authenticity, usually on the identical time.
The play’s Tony win, introduced throughout the first half of the ceremony hosted by Cynthia Erivo at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor, marks a historic achievement. Jacobs-Jenkins turns into the primary Black playwright to win the Tony for Finest Play since August Wilson obtained the glory in 1987 for Fences. That hole almost 4 a long time longsp eaks volumes concerning the state of illustration on Broadway and makes Function’s win all of the extra vital.
Broadway has lengthy been criticized for its lack of range in storytelling and management. However with this victory, there’s hope that the tide is continuous to show. Jacobs-Jenkins, already a celebrated determine for performs resembling An Octoroon and Gloria, has now solidified his place within the canon of American theater. His work challenges kind, flips expectations, and refuses to make his characters or his viewers snug.
Born in Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre
What makes Function notably particular is its origin story. Not like many Broadway-bound productions that emerge from New York workshops or worldwide levels, Function was born in Chicago at a theater recognized for taking dangers and nurturing new voices. Steppenwolf Theatre has constantly served as a launching pad for daring and progressive storytelling, and this manufacturing continues that legacy in full power.
The play’s Chicago roots are important. Chicago is a metropolis recognized for its complexity, its resilience, and its unapologetically Black cultural expression. The Jasper household could also be fictional, however their struggles really feel acquainted to anybody raised in, formed by, or related to Chicago’s layered social and religious panorama.
An plain buzz
By the point Function made its Broadway debut, the excitement was plain. Critics praised its sharp writing and uncooked performances, whereas audiences have been drawn to its depth and relatability. Now, with a Pulitzer and a Tony in hand, Function stands as one of the crucial impactful American performs of the last decade.
Greater than only a win for its playwright, solid, or inventive workforce, this second is a win for the theater neighborhood in Chicago, for Black storytelling on the primary stage, and for anybody who’s ever longed to see their complicated truths mirrored truthfully within the arts.
As Jacobs-Jenkins took the stage to just accept the award, the message was clear: the way forward for American theater isn’t simply on Broadway — it’s within the cities, households, and communities the place tales like Function are lived day by day.
