a in the sun 1959 play by lorraine hansberry

This may be a musical, but we couldn’t keep ourselves from adding it to this list.

Lorraine Hansberry, Robert Nemiroff, Judd Woldin, Charlotte Zaltzberg and Robert Brittan Forswearing politics and wanting only to return to his wife and child in England, Tshembe is drawn into the conflict symbolized by a woman dancer, the powerful Spirit of Africa who pursues him. He finds his teenage brother a near alcoholic and his older brother a priest and traitor to his people. Tshembe Matoseh, the English educated son of a chief, has come home to bury his father. The setting is a white Christian mission in a colony about to explode the time is that hour of reckoning when no one can evade the consequences of white colonialism and imperatives of Black liberation. Released posthumously by Hansberry’s ex-husband Robert Nemiroff, with very minor adjustments, Les Blancs remains one of her best works. Well-known for being Hansberry’s final and most important play, this piece was originally penned as a response to Jean Genet's play Les Negres ( The Blacks) in 1959. (Full-Length Play, Drama / 3f, 8m, 5m or f, 1 boy or girl) The Younger family’s heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. When her deceased husband’s insurance money comes through, Mama Lena dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago, but Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans – buying a liquor store and being his own man. Set in Chicago’s South Side, the play revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis, and matriarch Lena. The first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun has been making its mark on the theatrical world since 1959. (Full-Length Play, Drama / 3f, 7m, 1 boy)

Take a moment to celebrate some of her key pieces below. Though she died at age 34, and only two of the plays below were produced during her lifetime, Hansberry changed the face of American theatre, and she continues to make a mark on stages around the world. Recognized as one of America’s most revered playwrights, Lorraine Hansberry has articulated stories of the Black American community with love, care and compassion, bringing them to the stage to roaring reviews.

A in the sun 1959 play by lorraine hansberry