The 2023-24 Broadway season began on April 28, the day after the cutoff date for 2023 Tony Award submissions. This year’s schedule features an abundance of new plays and musicals, beginning with Levi Holloway’s Grey House, which opened on May 30, and others such as the Britney Spears jukebox musical Once Upon a One More Time, Alex Edelman’s solo comedy Just for Us, and a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch is another critically acclaimed revival that debuted on Broadway in the 2023-24 season. The comedy, a revival of Ossie Davis’ 1961 play about a Black preacher trying to win back his church in the Jim Crow-era South, opened on September 27 at the Music Box Theatre. Scheduled to run until January 7, 2024, it is the first major production of the play in New York since the original.
Revival of Ossie Davis’ Original Comedy
Davis, a prominent Black playwright and advocate for social change, wrote and starred in the original Purlie Victorious. This groundbreaking play made its debut at the James Earl Jones Theatre, formerly known as the Cort Theatre. Davis, who grew up in racially segregated Georgia, wrote many of his real-life experiences into the play, including the frequent use of racial slurs and references to attacks on Black people, such as a young man being dunked head-first into a bucket of syrup.
Davis portrayed the titular character Purlie Victorious Judson, who strives to emancipate cotton pickers from Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee’s plantation and save the Big Bethel community church. Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, and Sorrell Booke also starred in the play, which ran for 261 performances. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated the 100th performance of Purlie Victorious with the show’s cast and crew.
Starring Leslie Odom Jr.
Actor and singer Leslie Odom Jr. is playing the titular character in the Purlie Victorious revival. He has appeared in several film and TV projects, including The Many Saints of Newark (2021) and Person of Interest (2013), and has 25 years of experience in live theater. He debuted on Broadway as a replacement in Rent (1998) and has since performed in several Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional productions. Most notably, he won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in Hamilton (2015).
Jay O. Sanders is playing Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee and Noah Robbins is playing his more affable son, Charlie. The cast also includes Billy Eugene Jones (Gitlow Judson), Heather Alicia Simms (Missy Judson), and Vanessa Bell Calloway (Idella Landy).
The Producers and Creative Crew
Kenny Leon, one of the first Black directors of a nonprofit theater company, is directing Purlie Victorious. Leon, who served as artistic director of the Alliance Theatre Company in Atlanta from 1990 to 2000, directed Broadway shows such as A Raisin in the Sun (2004), August Wilson’s Fences (2010), and Children of a Lesser God (2018). He also directed the Tony Award-nominated A Soldier’s Play (2019). Derek McLane (scenic design), Emilio Sosa (costume design), Peter Fitzgerald (sound design), and Kamara A. Jacobs (production stage manager) are also part of the creative crew.
Odom Jr. and Leon are also co-producers of the play. This collaborative effort encompasses other notable co-producers, including Louise Gund, Jeffrey Richards, Salman Moudhy Al-Rashin, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, and the National Black Theatre. Alan Alda, who played Charlie in the 1961 play, also serves as a co-producer.
Showing at the Music Box Theatre
Located at 239 W 45th Street in New York, the Music Box Theatre is a 1,025-seat venue distinguished by its iconic facade and auditorium interior, both designated as landmarks in New York City. The two-level auditorium features a large balcony and a pair of outwardly curved box seats within elaborate archways. More than half of the seats are in the orchestra.
Now owned by The Shubert Organization, the Music Box Theatre opened in 1920 with the world premiere of The Music Box Revue. The theater has hosted productions such as 1944’s I Remember Mama (which featured Marlon Brando’s Broadway debut), Side by Side by Sondheim (1977), State Fair (1996), and the Tony Award-winning One Man, Two Guvnors (2012).
Rave Reviews
Since its debut, several critics have written positive reviews of Purlie Victorious. In addition to praising the acting skills and comedic chops of Kara Young as Lutiebelle, Odom Jr.’s portrayal of the overconfident preacher, and Leon’s direction, Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker said the play’s greatest asset was its physical comedy: “The whole company moves in choreographed tandem—one bit, at a particularly melodramatic moment, has them running up and downstage like relay races, skidding with cartoonish exaggeration.”
New York Magazine writer Sarah Holdren agreed with Cunningham, noting Young has “heavyweight-class comedic chops,” while Time Out New York‘s Adam Feldman called the play “an uncompromising, joyous affair, broad in comedy and spirit.” Jesse Green of The New York Times called the play “blazing and hilarious.”