Video: Kara Young Celebrates Tony Win for Best Featured Actress in a Play
Purpose is running on Broadway at the Hayes Theatre.
By: Joey Mervis Jun. 08, 2025
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Earlier tonight at the 78th Annual Tony Awards, Kara Young took home a Tony Award for 'Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play' for her outstanding work in Purpose. After leaving the stage at Radio City Music Hall, she checked in with BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge to share her initial reaction!
Young recently starred on Broadway as ‘Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins’ in Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, for which she won a 2024 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. She had made history prior to her win, as her third consecutive Tony nomination makes her the first Black performer to be nominated three years in a row. Additionally, her performance in Purlie Victorious earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award and Drama League nomination. Young is the first African American actress to be nominated four times in a row in any category. She is also one of only three actress with four or more nominations in the history of this category.
Young was recently seen starring in MCC Theater’s Table 17. In 2022, she made her Broadway debut in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, for which she earned a Theatre World Award and her first Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. In 2023, she was Tony nominated for her work in Cost of Living and won an Obie Award for her performance in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Twelfth Night. Kara can next be seen starring in the feature film Is God Is. She can also be seen in Boots Riley’s I’m a Virgo for Prime Video, which earned her an Indie Spirit Nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. She appeared in HBO Max’s “The Staircase” as well as Netflix’s “The Punisher” and starred in the winning Sundance Short, Hair Wolf. Kara also starred in MCC Theater’s All The Natalie Portmans, for which she received a Lucille Lortel Award Nomination. Her other stage credits include Halfway Bitches Go Straight To Heaven, New Englanders, Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d and Pretty Hunger.
