50 Fun Facts About A Raisin in the Sun

Why does Mama Younger pick a house in an all-white neighborhood over a Black one in A Raisin in the Sun?

It was much cheaper, a practical choice rather than a political one, and the white neighborhood's Improvement Association still sends a man round to buy the family out. Walter refuses the offer in the final scene.

What sum does the life-insurance check bring the Younger family after Big Walter's death in A Raisin in the Sun?

$10,000 is the payout on Big Walter's life, and every Younger has a plan for it: Mama a house, Walter a liquor store, Beneatha her tuition. Only the house survives the play.

What job does Walter Lee Younger hold in A Raisin in the Sun while he dreams of buying into a liquor store?

Limousine driver is the job Walter is barely living on, which is why a share in a liquor store with two street-smart acquaintances looks like salvation. Mama's religious objection to alcohol stands in the way.

What does Beneatha Younger plan to become in A Raisin in the Sun, the ambition Mama earmarks insurance money for?

A doctor is what Beneatha means to be, and Asagai's marriage proposal comes with an invitation to practise medicine in his homeland. Her tuition vanishes when Walter's deal collapses.

Which partner in Walter's liquor-store deal in A Raisin in the Sun vanishes with the cash, leaving Bobo to tell him?

Willy Harris skips town with the whole stake, and Beneatha's tuition goes with it because Walter never banked the share Mama told him to. Walter then nearly takes the buyout.

Which rich suitor of Beneatha's in A Raisin in the Sun embodies the 'fully assimilated black man' and mocks Walter?

George Murchison is the rich, educated boyfriend who denies his African heritage, and Beneatha finds his smarter-than-thou act disgusting. Asagai, the rival, teaches her that heritage instead.

Joseph Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun invites Beneatha to move with him to which country, alongside a marriage proposal?

Nigeria is Asagai's home, and the Yoruba student calls Beneatha's straightened hair 'mutilation' while teaching her about her African heritage. She agrees to consider going.

Who played Walter Lee Younger in the original Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun and in the 1961 film?

Sidney Poitier jumped into the audience on opening night and pulled Hansberry onto the stage when the crowd cried out for the author. He had sent the script to its director a year earlier.

Who directed the 1959 Broadway premiere of A Raisin in the Sun, the first Black director of a Broadway play?

Lloyd Richards later ran the Yale School of Drama for twelve years and brought August Wilson to Broadway with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in 1984. He and Hansberry rewrote the script weekly through 1958.

Which singer wrote 'To Be Young, Gifted and Black' in memory of her friend Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965?

Nina Simone introduced the song to 50,000 people at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and Hansberry had been godmother to Simone's daughter Lisa. The title came from a 1964 Hansberry speech.

In which all-white Chicago neighborhood does Mama put a down payment on a house in A Raisin in the Sun?

Clybourne Park's Improvement Association sends Karl Lindner round with an offer to buy the Youngers out, which the family rejects twice over. Walter finally turns the money down himself.

Which nosy neighbor, cut from A Raisin in the Sun's Broadway staging, jokes the Youngers will be bombed within a month?

Mrs. Johnson's scene stays in print because, as the published introduction says, it pulls the play away from a seemingly happy ending toward the violence Hansberry's own family met. The 2016 BBC radio version restored her.

When Mama hands Walter the remaining $6,500 in A Raisin in the Sun, how much must he reserve for Beneatha's education?

$3,000 was meant for Beneatha's schooling, but Walter hands the whole sum to his partner instead of banking it, and it vanishes with him. Mama had put $3,500 down on the house.

In which part of Chicago do the five Youngers share a run-down two-bedroom apartment in A Raisin in the Sun?

South Side Chicago was Hansberry's own ground: in 1938 her father bought a house in one of its white subdivisions, and the neighbors' lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Youngers are waiting on an insurance check.

Who originated Ruth Younger on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun and repeated the role in the 1961 film?

Ruby Dee won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film, while its two leads had to settle for Golden Globe nominations. She had started out with the American Negro Theatre.

Who created Lena Younger on Broadway and on film in A Raisin in the Sun, earning Tony and BAFTA nominations?

Claudia McNeil nearly lost the part before opening: a would-be backer demanded Ethel Waters replace her, and producer Philip Rose walked away from his money. McNeil later said she no longer acted the role, she lived it.

Which actress played Beneatha in both the 1959 Broadway cast and the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun?

Diana Sands went on to a Tony nomination opposite Alan Alda in The Owl and the Pussycat in 1964, and had been a high-school classmate of Diahann Carroll. She was twice nominated for an Emmy as well.

Which actor turned down the New York Knicks to join the 1959 Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun?

Louis Gossett Jr. made his film debut in the 1961 adaptation, two decades before his Oscar as the drill instructor in An Officer and a Gentleman. Broadway had already seen him in Take a Giant Step.

Which former husband of Hansberry wrote the book of Raisin, the 1973 musical version of A Raisin in the Sun?

Robert Nemiroff's share of the pop hit 'Cindy, Oh Cindy' had let Hansberry quit her day jobs to write full-time, and as her executor he completed Les Blancs and won a Tony for producing Raisin.

Which hip-hop mogul played Walter Lee in the 2004 Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun and its 2008 TV film?

Sean Combs was in his first major movie role, and The Hollywood Reporter judged that he 'holds his own' beside two Tony-winning co-stars. The Broadway run lasted 89 performances.

Who won the 2004 Best Actress Tony as Lena in A Raisin in the Sun, the first Black actress to take it?

Phylicia Rashad's younger sister Debbie Allen had played Beneatha in the 1973 musical Raisin, three decades before Rashad's Lena. Rashad reprised the part in the 2008 TV film.

Who directed both the 2004 and 2014 Broadway revivals of A Raisin in the Sun, winning the 2014 Tony for direction?

Kenny Leon's 2014 staging took the Tony for Best Revival of a Play, and he also directed the 2008 television film, which premiered at Sundance. His 2004 cast reprised their roles in it.

Which British actress won a Tony for her Broadway debut as Ruth in the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun?

Sophie Okonedo beat her own co-star Anika Noni Rose, nominated in the same category for Beneatha, to the Featured Actress award. She returned to Broadway in The Crucible in 2016.

Which A Raisin in the Sun actor played Karl Lindner on Broadway, in the 1961 film and in the 1989 TV version?

John Fiedler played the play's sole white role three times across thirty years, and Walt Disney cast him as Piglet after hearing his voice on television. He was Juror No. 2 in 12 Angry Men too.

Which actor, aged 12, played the Youngers' son Travis in the original 1959 Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun?

Glynn Turman went on to Cooley High in 1975 and Gremlins in 1984, then directed episodes of A Different World and The Wayans Bros. Each of the other three names played Travis in a later version.

Who directed the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun, taking a special Gary Cooper Award at Cannes for it?

Daniel Petrie shot the film from Hansberry's own screenplay with the Broadway cast almost intact, and the Golden Globes nominated both of his leads. The play itself had been completed in 1957.

In 2005 the Library of Congress chose the 1961 A Raisin in the Sun movie for preservation in which archive?

National Film Registry status marks a film as 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant', and the AFI ranked this one 65th among its most inspiring films in 2006.

At which Broadway house did A Raisin in the Sun premiere in March 1959, before moving to the Belasco that October?

Ethel Barrymore Theatre was also where the 2014 revival played, returning the Youngers to the stage of the premiere 55 years on. The original run closed in June 1960.

How many of its four 1960 Tony nominations did A Raisin in the Sun win, including Best Play and Best Actor?

Zero: The Miracle Worker took Best Play and Best Direction, Melvyn Douglas took Best Actor for The Best Man, and Anne Bancroft Best Actress. The musical version fared better in 1974.

Who played Walter Lee opposite Esther Rolle's Lena in the 1989 PBS American Playhouse film of A Raisin in the Sun?

Danny Glover had already played the part on tour for the Roundabout Theatre's 25th-anniversary staging, which the PBS version was built on. Bill Duke directed it.

Which network broadcast the 2008 TV film of A Raisin in the Sun after its Sundance debut, drawing 12.7 million viewers?

ABC's broadcast ranked ninth in the Nielsen ratings for its week, and the film went on to win the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Television Movie.

Which actor narrates the 2008 TV film of A Raisin in the Sun, uncredited, alongside John Stamos as Karl Lindner?

Morgan Freeman's uncredited voice joins a cast in which David Oyelowo plays Joseph Asagai and Bill Nunn plays Bobo. Paris Qualles wrote the teleplay.

Carl Hansberry, Lorraine's father, was planning to move the family to which country when he died there in 1946?

Mexico drew Carl Hansberry after a failed 1940 run for Congress left him despairing of American racism, and Lorraine later spent a summer studying painting in Guadalajara.

What legal device did white neighbors use to try to oust the Hansberrys from their home, in a 1940 Supreme Court case?

A restrictive covenant barred Black buyers from the subdivision, but the court found the Hansberrys could not be bound by an earlier suit, since only 54% of frontage owners had signed, not the required 95%.

Hansberry joined the staff of Freedom, a 1950s Black newspaper, whose publisher was which singer and activist?

Paul Robeson gave a eulogy at Hansberry's 1965 funeral, and in 1952 she travelled to a peace conference in Uruguay in his place after the State Department refused him travel papers.

Where did Hansberry integrate a dormitory and turn to Communist Party activism before leaving for New York in 1950?

University of Wisconsin classmate Bob Teague remembered her as the only girl he knew who could whip together a fresh picket sign at a moment's notice for any cause. She also worked on Henry Wallace's 1948 campaign.

Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer in January 1965, after two operations had failed to stop it, at what age?

34 years was all she had; James Baldwin wrote that what she saw of the world 'contributed to the strain which killed her'. She is buried in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Hansberry's second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, is set in which New York neighborhood where she lived?

Greenwich Village was where she moved with her new husband after their 1953 wedding, and the play ran 101 performances, closing two days before she died. Her Bleecker Street apartment is on the National Register.

Which attorney general did Hansberry meet at a 1963 civil-rights session that James Baldwin had arranged?

Robert F. Kennedy met Hansberry, Baldwin and CORE's Jerome Smith on May 24, 1963; a month later she chaired a rally whose funds helped buy the station wagon three murdered civil-rights workers were driving.

Whose Pulitzer-winning 2010 play shows the white couple selling the Youngers their house, then jumps ahead 50 years?

Bruce Norris's play won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony for Best Play, with a second act set in 2009 in the same house. Its first act begins an hour after Karl Lindner leaves the Youngers.

Which playwright's 2013 sequel follows Beneatha abroad with Asagai and on to a deanship at a California university?

Kwame Kwei-Armah dubbed the three plays 'The Raisin Cycle', and Baltimore's Center Stage staged them together in its 2012–13 season. His Beneatha becomes Dean of Social Sciences rather than practising medicine.

At which London theatre did A Raisin in the Sun open in August 1959, five months after its Broadway debut?

Adelphi Theatre's run had the same director and producers as Broadway, joined by British impresario Jack Hylton, and Juanita Moore played Lena.

Which Seán O'Casey play did Hansberry use as a model while revising A Raisin in the Sun with its director in 1958?

Juno and the Paycock was one of the shared enthusiasms, with Chekhov, that bonded playwright and director through weekly rewrites, and the original manuscript was later lost. Charles J. Shields credits the director with much of it.

Who won the 1974 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical playing Lena Younger in the musical Raisin?

Virginia Capers took one of the two Tonys Raisin won from nine nominations, the other being Best Musical, and then led the national tour. Her Broadway debut had been in Jamaica in 1957.

Which future Good Times star played Travis in the 1973 musical Raisin, winning a Theatre World Award for it?

Ralph Carter left Raisin to become Michael Evans, the youngest child of Florida and James Evans on Good Times from 1974 to 1979. He had been on Broadway since the age of nine.

How many performances did the original Broadway run of A Raisin in the Sun total by its June 1960 closing?

530 performances across two theatres: it opened in March 1959 and finished at the Belasco Theatre, which it had moved to that October, before the film version went before the cameras.

Which magazine sent David Attie to photograph Hansberry in her Bleecker Street apartment in April 1959?

Vogue's shoot took place in the apartment where she had written the play, and biographer Imani Perry says the images caught 'her intellectual confidence, armour, and remarkable beauty'.

Which Chicago landmark became the permanent home in 2024 of a Hansberry statue ringed by five bronze chairs?

Navy Pier unveiled Alison Saar's 'To Sit A While' with an outdoor screening of the 1961 film, after the statue debuted in Times Square in 2022 and toured US cities.

Which 1961 musical did Hansberry take over from director Vinnette Carroll after its Chicago tryout at McCormick Place?

Kicks and Co, a satire on miscegenation co-produced by her husband, drew a warm Chicago reception but never reached Broadway.

Which studio released the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun, shot from a screenplay Hansberry wrote herself?

Columbia Pictures put the film out on May 29, 1961, in black and white, with a score by Laurence Rosenthal and Hansberry's own screenplay.