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The Feature Presentation

A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The story based on Hansberry's own experiences growing up in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, as well as the first play with a black director (Lloyd Richards) on Broadway. The title comes from the opening lines of "Harlem", a poem by Langston Hughes (1902-1967): "What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?" A play with an all-black cast was considered to be a risky investment, and it took a year for first-time producer Philip Rose to gather the money to launch the play. After touring to positive reviews, it premiered on Broadway on 11 March 1959 to enthusiastic critical approval. The New York Drama Critics Circle named it the best play of 1959, and it ran for nearly two years. Hansberry noted that it introduced details of black life to the overwhelmingly white Broadway audiences, while director Richards noted that it was the first play to which large numbers of blacks were drawn. The play concerns the working-class Younger family, who dream of leaving behind the dilapidated tenement apartment where they have lived for decades. The son Walter, a chauffeur, dreams of making a fortune by investing in a liquor store but foolishly gives his money to a con artist. His sister Beneatha, a somewhat flighty college student, tries to find her identity and embraces the "back to Africa" philosophy of a Nigerian friend. Their mother, the matriarch, dreams of buying a home, and does so with her late husband's insurance money, but the house is in an all-white neighborhood. Their racist future neighbors hire a man named Karl Lindner as a "Welcoming Committee" to try to buy them out to prevent the neighborhood's integration. However, Walter takes a stand and refuses to be intimidated or bought out; in this, he stops deferring his family's dreams and helps them advance. The central idea of the play is concerned with combating the myth of black contentment. The stress of poverty is vividly portrayed through the tight quarters as five people are squeezed together onstage into a one room apartment.

The cast