Lorraine Hansberry News

Trustus Theatre is bringing Bruce Norris' Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and Olivier Award-winning comedy Clybourne Park to the Thigpen Main Stage. This show, a response to Lillian Hellman's A Raisin in the Sun, is a provocative and humorous look at racial relations and reactions in America. Clybourne Park is directed by award-winning guest director Jim O'Connor, and opens on the Thigpen Main Stage Friday January 24th at 8:00pm. The show runs through February 8th, 2014. Tickets may be purchased at www.trustus.org.

Marin Theatre Company, in association with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, announced today that, due to brisk ticket sales, MTC has extended August Wilson's Fences by eight performances. Directed by Derrick Sanders and featuring actors Carl Lumbly, Steven Anthony Jones and Margo Hall, the production will run for 36 performances, from April 10 through May 11.

Produced by Scott Rudin, Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington will star as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, opposite film, television and Tony Award-winning stage starDiahann Carroll as Lena Younger, in her first Broadway appearance in over 30 years.The production will be directed by Tony Award-nominee Kenny Leon. Previews begin March 8, 2014, with opening night on April 3, 2014 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street), where the original production of A Raisin in the Sun opened 55 years ago. A Raisin in the Sun is a limited engagement, running 14 weeks only through June 15, 2014. The marquee just went up at the Barrymore Theatre and BroadwayWorld was there as it was being installed. Check out photos below!

After a sold out World Premiere Presentation at the Segal Theatre, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre (NBT) in association with The New Black Fest present the first full production of Facing Our Truth: 10 minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege from February 5 - 10, 2014. Opening on February 5th 2014, Trayvon Martin's birthday.

Color Struck, by Donald E. Lacy Jr. will be presented on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 at 7:30pm in the Louis B. Mayer Theatre on the Santa Clara University campus as part of SCU•Presents Arts for Social Justice and Visiting Artist Series. Tickets are on sale now with prices ranging from $25 to $10 and may be purchased on-line at www.scupresents.org

Theatre Rhinoceros presents the Bay Area Premiere of the Stephen Sondheim Musical ROAD SHOW, featuring Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and Book by John Weidman, and running today, January 2 - 19, 2014.

Elee Schrock and Paul W. Thompson pick the ten best theater productions in Chicago for 2013.

City Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, a powerful and provocative reimagining of a pivotal night in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life-his last. Directed by Peter Flynn, The Mountaintop runs on City Theatre's Mainstage from January 18 to February 9, 2014, with an Opening Night performance on Friday, January 24 at 8pm.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced last week that the Huntington Theatre Company is one of 895 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. The Huntington is slated to be awarded $25,000 to support the development and production of Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lydia R. Diamond's Smart People, now extended to play May 23 - June 29, 2014.

Hotel Nikko San Francisco and Michael Feinstein are thrilled to welcome Emmy Award winner, Leslie Jordan, to Feinstein's at the Nikko for one performance only - Friday, January 31, 2014 at 8 p.m. Do gay men become their mothers? That is the question asked in Leslie Jordan's hilarious and touching new romp, Fruit Fly. A tribute to motherhood, Jordan travels back in time using show-and-tell to take audiences on the ride of a lifetime, sharing hysterical stories about growing-up as a flamboyant, doll-loving boy in the South. From the day a teenage Leslie sits down with his caring but clueless mother to inform her that he has decided to forego college to become a female impersonator, all the way to a gay Alaskan cruise with 2,000 gay men on which a 53 year-old Leslie witnesses his aging mother's astounding metamorphosis, Jordan's storytelling skills make for an evening of fun and thought-provoking theater. Tickets for Leslie Jordan range in price from $25-$35 and are available now by calling 866.663.1063 or visiting www.ticketweb.com.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Broadway's Tony Award for Best Play. London's Olivier Award for Best New Play. There's only one show in history that can claim all three honors. The Playhouse is proud to kick off the second half of its Marx Theatre season with Bruce Norris' CLYBOURNE PARK, running Jan. 18 through Feb. 16.

Theatre Rhinoceros presents the Bay Area Premiere of the Stephen Sondheim Musical ROAD SHOW, featuring Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and Book by John Weidman, and running January 2 - 19, 2014

Due to extraordinary early demand for the final two productions of its 2013-2014 Season, Huntington Theatre Company announces one-week extensions to the runs of Melinda Lopez's Becoming Cuba and Lydia R. Diamond's Smart People. The Huntington's previous productions by these acclaimed Boston playwrights - Sonia Flew by Melinda Lopez and Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond - hold the records as the two highest grossing productions ever staged in the Wimberly Theatre of the Huntington's second home, the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

In a neighborhood torn by gun violence between black and Mexican youth, a prominent black minister, haunted by the ghosts of his struggles as a 60's radical, faces his own impotence to restore order in 'Welcome Home Sonny T,' a new play written and directed by William Electric Black. Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., will present the work tonight, December 5 to 22, 2013.

Marin Theatre Company, in association with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, announces the casting of its spring production of August Wilson's Fences, directed by Derrick Sanders. Fences, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize and 1987 and 2010 Tony Awards, will feature veteran film and television actor Carl Lumbly as Troy Maxson, Steven Anthony Jones, the artistic director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, as Jim Bono and award-winning actor, playwright and director Margo Hall as Rose, as well as Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Eddy Ray Jackson as Cory, Adrian Roberts as Gabriel and Tyee Tilghman as Lyons. MTC's production of Fences will run from April 10 through May 4.

A new exhibition, Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry's Letters to 'The Ladder,' examines a lesser-known aspect of the life of the award-winning author of the landmark play A Raisin in the Sun, who died in 1965 at the age of thirty-four. The exhibition features documents and publications addressing Hansberry's identification as a feminist and a lesbian, and will be on view in the Herstory Gallery of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art from today, November 22, 2013, through March 16, 2014.

Hotel Nikko San Francisco and Michael Feinstein are proud to announce the upcoming lineup at Feinstein's at the Nikko for January 2014. Artists include actor and singer Tom Wopat, star of stage and screen Cheyenne Jackson, Broadway and West End star Sierra Boggess, Emmy Award winning actor and comedian Leslie Jordan, and more! Tickets for all performances are on-sale now and available by calling 866.663.1063 or visiting www.ticketweb.com.

A significant endowment from members of the Sackler family has established the position of Sackler Family Curator for the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art of the Brooklyn Museum. The inaugural position will be held by Catherine J. Morris, who has been Curator of the Sackler Center since 2009.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival wrapped up its 78th season Sunday night with the final performances of The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear. Preparations for the 2014 season are well under way; member ticket sales start this week and previews begin February 14.

Musical America, now in its third century as the indispensable resource for the performing arts, today announced the winners of the annual Musical America Awards, recognizing artistic excellence and achievement in the arts.