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...