Studio Theatre announces cast for Purlie Victorious

Studio Theatre has assembled a powerhouse cast for its production of Ossie Davis’ monumental 1961 farce, Purlie Victorious. Directed by Psalmayene 24, the cast of Warner Miller, Danaya Esperanza, Kelli Blackwell, Jason Bowen, John Sygar, Lizan Mitchell, Stephen Patrick Martin, Elliott Bales, and Jacob Thompson will be taking on this classic send-up of American race relations.

“When I saw this play on Broadway three years ago, I couldn’t understand why I’d never heard of it, and immediately wanted DC audiences to experience this rediscovered classic,” said Studio Artistic Director David Muse. “It manages to make a powerful statement about race in America and be hilarious at the same time. It’s tonally challenging to put on a play that deals with such heavy themes and remains genuinely funny, but anyone who saw The Colored Museum at Studio in 2023 knows how capably Psalm can thread that needle.”

When the play originally debuted in 1961, it counted among its fans Civil Rights leaders like Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Ossie Davis himself, along with his wife Ruby Dee (who starred in the play as Purlie and Lutiebelle), were major civil rights activists who helped organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and served as its emcees.

Addressing the play’s relevance to today’s audiences, Psalm said, “As forces in America are currently attempting to obscure and erase Black history, the act of remembrance is essentially an act of resistance. Purlie Victorious is a play that is beautifully subversive in the way it uses the healing balm of laughter to help us remember and take stock of a painful chapter in our collective American history.”

Purlie Victorious runs May 6 – June 21, 2026, in the Victor Shargai Theatre at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St NW, Washington, DC.