Geva Theatre Center’s 2011-2012 Season continues with Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play, A Raisin in the Sun, which begins performances on February 21 and runs in the Elaine P. Wilson Mainstage through March 25.
About the show: The Younger family receives an insurance check for $10,000. Each family member has their own idea about how to use the money. Family responsibility, selfishness and love come to blows in the cold light of poverty and racism. Considered one of the great American dramas, Lorraine Hansberry’s play about dreams deferred and a family’s determination to live a better life in a changing world was the first play by a black woman ever to be produced on Broadway.
A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959 where it ran for 530 performances in a production starring Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger, Jr.; Claudia McNeil as Lena Younger and Ruby Dee as Ruth. The play was inspired by the Hansberry family’s legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago. At the age of 29, Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the NY Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play with A Raisin in the Sun, and the play was nominated for four Tony Awards. The original Broadway cast reprised their roles for the 1961 film for which Hansberry wrote the screenplay. Raisin, a musical based on the play, opened on Broadway in 1973 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. In 2004, A Raisin in the Sun was revived on Broadway and nominated for a Tony for the Best Revival of a Play. The cast included Sean Combs as Walter Lee Younger, Jr.; Phylicia Rashad as Lena and Audra McDonald as Ruth. It has twice been produced for television – the first TV movie in 1989 starred Danny Glover and Esther Rolle, and the second, in 2008, reunited the cast of the 2004 Broadway revival and received two NAACP Image Awards. When Geva first produced A Raisin in the Sun directed by Woodie King, Jr. during the 1977-78 Season, the cast included a young Samuel L. Jackson playing the role of Joseph Asagai.
A Raisin in the Sun is directed by Robert O’Hara who makes his Geva Theatre Center debut. Mr. O’Hara is one of the country’s most sought-after directors and playwrights. He is the recipient of many awards including the 2010 NAACP Best Director Award and an Obie Award. His plays include Antebellum, for which he received the 2010 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play; Good Breeding which was recently produced by ACT/Zeum; Etiquette of Vigilance, recently produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Insurrection: Holding History which he also directed at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Insurrection: Holding History received the Oppenheimer Award for Best New American Play and was subsequently published by both TCG and Dramatist Play Service. In 2011 he released his film writing and directing debut, The Inheritance. He has written screenplays for Martin Scorsese and Universal, Spike Lee and HBO, Jon Avnet and ABC, Richard Zanuck, Sony Pictures, Fine Line Cinema and Artisan Entertainment.
The cast of A Raisin in the Sun includes Brian D. Coats (Bobo) who last appeared at Geva in Fences, Jessica Frances Dukes (Beneatha Younger) who was last seen in Geva’s production of The Piano Lesson in 2008, Perri Gaffney (Mrs. Johnson), Daphne Gaines (Ruth Younger), Keith Gallagher (Karl Linder), Broadway veteran Lynda Gravátt (Lena Younger) who was last seen at Geva in The Old Settler with Leslie Uggams, Tyrien Obahnjoko (Joseph Asagai/George) and Bowman Wright (Walter Lee Younger, Jr.). Geva will be casting two local young actors to share the role of Walter Lee and Ruth’s son, Travis.
The design team for A Raisin in the Sun includes Clint Ramos (scenic and costume design), Japhy Weideman (lighting design) and Lindsay Jones (sound design).
TICKET PRICES: Tickets start at $25.
RESERVATIONS: (585) 232-GEVA (4382), Website: www.gevatheatre.org
LOCATION: Geva Theatre Center, 75 Woodbury Blvd, Rochester, NY 14607
