Kara Young Wins Featured Actress in a Play Tony Award After 3 Consecutive Nominations

Kara Young was named the winner of the 2024 Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play June 16 at the 77th Annual Tony Awards at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theatre.

Young was honored for her work as Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins in the Broadway revival of Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch. She also won the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play for her work in the production.

"To the great Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins who said I'm taking a chance on my life and I'm gonna go—because I have some life left in me," Young said accepting her Tony. "She deserved it. And we all do. Thank you. This is to the vibration of the liberation for humanity."

Others who were nominated in the category were Quincy Tyler Bernstine for Doubt: A Parable, Celia Keenan-Bolger for Mother Play, as well as Juliana Canfield and Sarah Pidgeon for Stereophonic.

This is Young’s first Tony win after three consecutive years of being nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play—making her the first Black woman to be nominated three years in a row. She was also nominated for her work on Broadway in Martina Majok’s Cost of Living and Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s. Additionally, Young has appeared in Off-Broadway productions, including Pretty Hunger at The Public Theater, The New Englanders at New York City Center, Atlantic Theater Company’s Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, MCC Theater’s All the Natalie Portmans, and Second Stage Theater’s The Apiary.

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