A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun, drama in three acts by Lorraine Hansberry, first published and produced in 1959. The play’s title is taken from “Harlem,” a poem by Langston Hughes, which examines the question “What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?” This penetrating psychological study of a working-class Black family on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1940s reflected Hansberry’s own experiences of racial harassment after her prosperous family moved into a white neighborhood.

Plot summary

Walter Lee Younger, a chauffeur, hopes to use his father’s life-insurance money to open a liquor store with two partners. His mother, with the support of Walter’s pragmatic wife, Ruth, and independent sister Beneatha, instead uses part of the money as a down payment on a house in an all-white neighborhood. Mama gives the remaining money, including Beneatha’s share (which is to be deposited in the bank), to Walter. After one of his partners absconds with the money, Walter despondently contacts Karl Lindner, a representative of the white neighborhood who had earlier tried to buy out the Youngers so as to avoid racial integration. Walter asks Lindner back, intending to accept his offer. However, Walter finally rejects the proposal.

Broadway debut

A Raisin in the Sun opened on March 11, 1959, at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre, becoming the first play by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. Reviewers such as Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times and Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune praised the drama’s emotional force and social relevance.

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The cast included Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger, Ruby Dee as Ruth Younger, Claudia McNeil as Lena Younger, and Diana Sands as Beneatha Younger. It sustained a Broadway run of 530 performances. The playwright Tennessee Williams sent Hansberry a telegram of congratulations following the premiere.

Hansberry became the youngest playwright and the first Black dramatist to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, which was presented to her in recognition of the excellence of A Raisin in the Sun on April 7, 1959. The play was selected over works by established playwrights of the time, such as Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Archibald MacLeish.