Celebrating Black History Month: Spotlight on Lorraine Hansberry

This February, BroadwayWorld is committed to celebrating the outstanding contributions that black artists have made to the American theatre. Join us for Black History month as we shine a spotlight on some of the most influential theatre-makers from Broadway's past.

Today is all about ground-breaking African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry.

Who is Lorraine Hansberry?

Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in the South Side of Chicago- the youngest of four children. Throughout her childhood, Hansberry's family struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the 1940 Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.

Hansberry is best known as the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. That play, A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award - making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so.

What is A Raisin in the Sun?

A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as The Independent and Time Out have listed it among the best plays ever written.

The play has been revived on Broadway twice since its premiere, turned into a film (1961) and a musical (1973). The original Broadway production starred Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil and subsequent casts have included Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Sophie Okonedo. The play has won five Tony Awards.

What are Lorraine Hansberry's other plays?

Other plays by Hansberry include The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964), Les Blancs (1970).

Did Lorraine Hansberry write outside of the theatre?

After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she dealt with other intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry's writings also discussed her lesbianism and the oppression of homosexuality.

Her other published works include: On Summer (1960), The Drinking Gourd (1960), What Use Are Flowers? (1962), The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964), and her autobiography- To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969).

What is Lorraine Hansberry's legacy?

In 1965, Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34.

Hansberry inspired the song by Nina Simone entitled "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", which was also the title of Hansberry's autobiography.

In 1999 Hansberry was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre of San Francisco, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in her honor.

Founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006, The Hansberry Project of Seattle WA was created as an African American theatre lab, led by African American artists and designed to provide the community with consistent access to the African American artistic voice.

In 2010, Hansberry was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. In 2013, Lorraine Hansberry was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

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