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A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry - 1959

Introduction

Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun opened on March 11, 1959, at the Ethel Barry-more Theatre on Broadway and ran for 530 performances. Directed by Lloyd Richards and starring Sidney Poitier in the role of Walter, it was the first play ever written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Its overwhelming success led to a New York Drama Circle Award for Hansberry, who also became the youngest person to win in the 1958–1959 season. A Raisin in the Sun is a domestic drama set in an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago sometime between 1945 and 1959. The play's title refers to a line from the Langston Hughes poem "Harlem," also known as "A Dream Deferred": "What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?"

The play examines the "deferred dreams" of the Younger family, who live in a tenement building on the South Side of Chicago. Mama and her daughter-in-law Ruth both dream of a better place to live than their cramped apartment, while Walter hopes for the financial independence he believes will come if he can open a liquor store.

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