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Backstage · February 10 · 20 min

131. Zindzi Okenyo

Director Zindzi Okenyo joins Regina Botros to talk about Purpose — the most awarded new American play of 2025, now on at Sydney Theatre Company in its first production since Broadway. Branden Jacobs‑Jenkins’ drama centres on a powerful African American family whose public legacy begins to crack when the estranged youngest son returns home with an unexpected guest. Stepping into this sharp, funny, emotionally volatile play: what drew Zindzi to it, how did she navigated the tension between public image and private truth, and how did she shaped the dynamic between a civil‑rights patriarch and the matriarch trying to hold everything together, while it falls apart. Featuring Grace Bentley‑Tsibuah, Deni Gordon, Markus Hamilton, Tinashe Mangwana, Maurice Marvel Meredith, and Sisi Stringer.

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Director Zindzi Okenyo joins Regina Botros to talk about Purpose — the most awarded new American play of 2025, now on at Sydney Theatre Company in its first production since Broadway. Branden Jacobs‑Jenkins’ drama centres on a powerful African American family whose public legacy begins to crack when the estranged youngest son returns home with an unexpected guest.

Stepping into this sharp, funny, emotionally volatile play: what drew Zindzi to it, how did  she navigated the tension between public image and private truth, and how did she shaped the dynamic between a civil‑rights patriarch and the matriarch trying to hold everything together, while it falls apart.

Featuring Grace Bentley‑Tsibuah, Deni Gordon, Markus Hamilton, Tinashe Mangwana, Maurice Marvel Meredith, and Sisi Stringer.

 

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