Born and raised in Harlem, Kara Young, whose parents immigrated to NYC from Belize, has not only smashed the clock on her proverbial “fifteen minutes of fame,” she has also just broken the Broadway record as the first Black actress to be nominated for a Tony Award in four consecutive years (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025), and has already received one, along with Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, and Obie Awards. At under five feet tall, she may be petite in height, but her talent is larger than life and she commands the stage in every show she performs.
Young enrolled at the City College of New York before attending the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts and making her 2016 stage debut in Patricia Ione Lloyd’s play Pretty Hunger at the Public Theater. The following year, she joined NYC’s LAByrinth Theater Company (an ensemble-driven non-profit group originally known as Latino Actors Base). Among her many stage and screen credits, the acclaimed star has appeared Off-Broadway in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (a LAByrinth co-production), C.A. Johnson’s All the Natalie Portmans, and as Viola in the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s revival of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
In November 2021, Young made her Broadway debut at the Hayes Theater as the single mother and diner worker Letitia in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, for which she was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play in the 75th annual Tony Awards. In 2022, Young played caregiver Jess in Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living at Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and was again nominated in the same category. In 2023, she portrayed Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins in the Broadway revival of Ossie Davis’s Purlie Victorious and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. If you missed the show live on Broadway, you can watch it through June 30, in the Great Performances series on the PBS website. And this season, she has received multiple nominations for her roles in two hit shows, Off-Broadway’s Table 17 at MCC Theater and her return to Broadway’s Hayes Theater in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Pulitzer Prize-winning play Purpose, playing through July 6.
Needless to say, it’s been a very busy and rewarding year for Kara, who graciously made time during this hectic awards season to answer our questions and to let her fans get to know her a little bit better.
- How does it feel to be nominated for multiple awards for your performances in two different shows on and off Broadway this season?
Kara: I feel super grateful!
- Are you more like Jada from Table 17 or Aziza from Purpose in real life?
I don’t think I’m like either one but probably more like Aziza in spirit.
- What do you find most relatable about Aziza?
She’s Harlem-born and -raised, like myself, and, as a social worker, she’s taken on an active pursuit to change the world and to help people. I feel like that when I’m doing a play – that I can shift something in someone and can do some good.
- What’s your greatest purpose in life?
Being a storyteller. And being with my family; I love them so much!
- What three things do you feel when you’re on stage?
Three is too little! Electricity in real time. Grateful to be with the company of people there with me. And I feel present in the moment – that it is not to be taken for granted.
- What’s the best thing about performing live?
Bringing it to right now. More than ever, theater is a place where people from all backgrounds can forget about what boxes or classes they fit in. We’re all watching and listening and leaning in; it offers everyone the potential to be together. Every performance is an alchemy.
- What’s the most memorable reaction you’ve ever gotten from an audience member?
I’m just wowed that they came and they’re here!
- Who or what has been the biggest inspiration in your career?
My family and New York. I’m inspired by all the characters who exist in the city and the resilience of New Yorkers.
- What’s your first creative memory?
My grandmother showed me how to make traditional Belizean cakes, and I started selling them. They did well! I think I was about nine or eleven years old.
- Is there a dream role or show you’d like to play in the future?
Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
- What three things do you always have in your dressing room?
Electrolytes; vitamins; and research materials. And a change of clothes. I know that’s more than three but there are so many things in my dressing room!
- If you weren’t an actor, what career path would you have pursued?
Probably a chef. And my grandmother always told me I was great at cosmetology.
- What’s your favorite pastime when you’re not working?
If I’m not in a show I’m going to a show or in rehearsals to do a show; my world revolves around this! I also really love chilling with my family.
- What three words would you use to describe yourself?
I hope I’m compassionate, aware, and loving. [I can affirm that she is!]
- What’s the best thing about being famous?
FAMOUS???!!! I’m not famous, I’m just a Harlem girl. I’m surrounded by community; I still take the train and say hello to my neighbors. And now I’m building another new community in the theater.
Thanks, Kara, for a fabulous fifteen minutes, and congratulations on all your well-deserved history-making success! It’s been a pleasure to get to know you and to enjoy your outstanding performances. There is no doubt that your “fifteen minutes of fame” will be never-ending.
Purpose plays through Sunday, July 6, 2025, at the Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $79-299, including fees), call (646) 410-2277, go online, or find discount tickets at TodayTix here.
