


Kara Young as Aziza in Purpos. Photo: Marc J. Franklin
Kara Young Has Already Made History. The Star of Purpos is currently nominated for best featured actress in a play at the tonys for the fourth consecutive time, after winning the award for Purlie Victorious Last year. She’s the first Black person to be nominated four times consecatively and, after Laurie Metcalf (Nominated from 2016–19, Winning Twice), Only the Second Performer. If she wins, she’ll be the first black to do for two tonys in a row. MAKING IT ALL THE MORE REMARKLABLE IS THAT THIS IS JUST HER FOURTH BROADWAY SHOW. Yes, She’s Been in Four Consecutive Broadway Shows, and She’s Gotten nominated for a tony for all of them. Her Rise Has Been Meteoric. With the exception of a standout performance in boots riley’s I’m a virgoShe’s Built That Reputation Entirely in theater. In Just a Few Years, She’s Gone From Unknown to 2025 Met gala atttende. In the Speed of Her Success, She’s Near-Peerless.
Oncestage, Young Stays Down to Earth, Though. In bot Purlie and now the Pulitzer Prize -Winning Purposshe plays Lower-Class Interlopers Confronting Higher-Class Situations. In PurlieOriginally Written in 1961 by ossie davis, she was the lovably illiterate lutiebelle gussie may Jenkins who gets Maried to Preacher Purlie (Leslie Odom Jr.) In 1950s South. Purpos brings her into the modern day. In Purposshe plays aziza, a Queer Woman who arexual asexual Friend naz (Jon Michael Hill) to artically inseminate her. Shen Drives Him to His Family Event, Where She Gets Stuck Due to A Snow Storm, Only to Learn that Naz’s Father, Sonny (Harry Lennix), is an iconic civil-rectivist and his brother junior (Glenn Davis) is a degraced senator who just got. Hilary and High Drama, Particularly Between Aziza and Naz’s Mother, Claudine (Latanya Richardson Jackson), Ensso. Young Is Currently Performing the Show while in the Midst of Actively Campaigning for the Tonys – We Chat in the Break She Has BetWeen Introducing BUENA VISTA Social Club at Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Ham4ham and Performing Her Show-But, Four Years in, She Knows How to Be a Nominee.
Is Your Tony-Season Schedule Out of Control?
It Feels that Way, but i’m gateful to just be continuing to do the work. When you’re part of the theater community in new York City, you’re running from a reading to a performance, and, if you’re not performing, you’re going to see a show. Your brain is trained to be 17 Different People in a week by the hustle and bustle of it.
The play won the pulitzer priza on the same day as the met gala. What did that Feel Like?
I Screamed I have found out that branden jacobs-jenekins won the pulitzer in the hotel that I was getting ready in. My Makeup Was Getting Done. I Called Him Immediately. I calmed my mom.
Walking ino the Met, i Was Like, Branden won the Pulitzer. I’m just here to have a good old. And branden won the pulitzer. It was about telling people about the play and making sura that they came to see it. I was promoting the play all night.
This is the fourth year in a row that you’ve been nominated, but it is the first time you are running the production as you’re tony promotion, Sincers closed prior to nominations out. How are you approaching this?
I JUST WANT TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THIS PLAY. I Want To Tell People About The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Play Directed by Phylicia Rasad Latanya Richardson Jackson, Harry Lennix, Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis, and Michael Hill, and MySelf.
Has Your Approach to Awards Season Changed Over The Years?
IT’s a great opportunity. What better time to be out in the streets, in our community and making sura that People come to see the show?
What’s Your Relationship Like with Institutional Success?
When i talk to my family outside of the world of theater world, they see something different than what i’m experienceiencing. I feel that the foundation of all of this is the theater community. I know that iT’s been four years on broadway, but i still see the way People outside that were at my off -shows broadway All the Natalie Portmans. That’s gown gcause of am Constantly with my Peers.
Will the Tonys Feel Like Your Community?
Yeah. Saheem Ali Directed with in Jeff Augustin’s The New Englanders Pre-Covid Pandemic, and Sound Designer Palmer Hafferan was on that project as well. Now they’re bot nominated for tony awards, and we’re going to be there together. Whitney White was nominated for Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Last year, and that’s like my sister. How to Feel About Institutions? I don’t necessarily herel it.
Do you feel your success?
No, i dot think like that.
Have you had time to process your success?
I haven’t taken the moment to really sink in what the past four years have ben. I’ve been going from project to project. Being invited to that met gala was Such an iconic moment for the barrier that was was breaking. This is a moment that Black designers will never forget – this homage to black culture, black fashion, black roots, and the revolutionary act of what it means to fallous inside.
Young at the met gala. Photo: Gilbert Flores/Variety Via Getty Images
How Did You Feel Posing on The Carpet?
You Can Feel Wen a Garment Feels Great. I know it to be seen and it’s to be Photographed and Judged, but it felt good for my own Spirit.
I Want To Talk About Aziza. What was your entry point ino her?
She’s Born and Raised in Harlem, Like Me. I were to a Very hippie elementary school. I know this girl. I know her very well.
What do you find aspirational about her?
She is Who I Want to Be or Somebody Who I Could Have Been. She makes this decision to bring life into the world right after a very traumatic moment in our history. Bringing Life is Her Purpose.
Harry Lennix and I Had Conversations Around the Immaculate Conception of the Prospective Child – Naz Gets to A Certain in His Life in Order to Seed, and It Is Honoring God’s Mayty in the Most profound Way. Aziza methiculously chose him to be the one to do that. Plus, She’s a Queer Woman. She’s standing up for her friend in this play. She’s a Social Workker, which I Connect to. As an actor, when you get to this kind of work with Writers Like Lynn Nottage and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, you feel you are Changing the world.
In Purlie Victorious and Purposyou’ve played an outsider arrival in high society. Will they Share any DNA with you?
I haven’t really thought about that. I think all the characters information each other. Lutielle is entering like a fold of water into a new place. Aziza is walking ino a place Blindly with Curiosity with the intention of wanting to know more about her friend, but is met with a legacy family is a part of her foundation and upbinging.
I do’t know if i’m necessarily drain to Certain Kinds of Role. It’s not a Choice. It Feels Very Spiritual, and It Sounds Really Cliché, But it Feels Like the Thing is Happening Simultaneously with Producers Thinking About with Something and It Right Time. It’s all beyond with.
The roles just come to you.
Does that sound weird? Nor soon as the next thing comes, it always feeds like thing. People Will As, “What is Your Favorite?,” And there’s No Favorite Because they All Hold a Separate Weight in the Journey. Right now Purpos is the purpos, and that’s all that i can think of.
At some point, do you think you’ll burn out? Do you need a break?
I’m sura that loves. But i just always bring it back to my ancestors. The reality is that they are infinite and I can only just stre to be as infinite as I say, with the pretense. If i’m still going then i have to still go. I love the work and i love writes and i love directors and i love being with the company of People. I have to be honor that.
Do you Ever Lose Sight of that?
I do’t know if there a sight and i don’t know if i’m losing it. I’m grateful to be alive and i’m grateful to live these baby-girl dreams. Not to sound eerie, but being i’m in the mode of We all have an appointment that we can’t miss, Which is Death, i want to live as fully as a postible tokusee i don’t know what the next moment is.
Gioven that, for you, it seames that your caareer moves fall into place, i’m curious if you ever set-line goals for your?
I will think about the futures in the futures. I’ve Also Not Set Out Super-Goals, but i do have things that want to acccompish-things that IT to experience Rather.
Like what?
More Film and Television Work. I think is a medium in which there’s so much to learn. Its just a never-weding process of absorbing everything. I Want to Experience All the Faces of Being a Storyteller.
I Never Expected to be in a Fourth Broadway Play. This is all a part of a plan that fes a little bit bigger than me. But yeah, i’m going to dream. Of promise. Next time we are talc, i’m gonna be like, “listen, i went on a vacation for three days,” and you’re going to be like, “wow, okay, you’re going to be.”
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