Bay Street Theater Announces Matching Grant For Literature Live!

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the eleventh year of the Literature Live! program. This year's Literature Live! production will be Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Lydia Fort. Bay Street Theater is proud to present this classic work from the American Theater to both students and the general public in this, the sixtieth anniversary of the play's first production on Broadway. Public performances are Thursday-Saturday, November 14-16, 21-23 and Thanksgiving weekend Friday-Sunday, November 29-December 1. Tickets are on sale now and available online at baystreet.org, or by calling the Box Office at 631-725-9500.

"ʽLiterature Live!,' now in its 11th year, is a shining example of Bay Street's ongoing public education outreach," says Susan Hanley Bay Street Theater's Director of Development. "This year, our free student program will attract more than 2,000 students from over 28 schools. Bay Street is proud to bring American Theater from the page to the stage to students from Great Neck to Montauk."

Again, this year, with the help of Century Arts Foundation and the Bay Street Board of Trustees, every dollar raised in support of Bay Street's Literature Live! Production A Raisin in the Sun will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000. Matching participants will be included in the playbill for all funds prior to October 30th. To donate call the Development department at 631-725-0818 or email Susan Hanley at shanley@baystreet.org. Donations can also be made online at Baystreet.org.

Now heading into its second decade, this BOCES-approved program celebrates classic American literature and Bay Street is thrilled to produce this landmark piece of theater. Join the unforgettable members of the Younger family as they experience both tragedy and triumph in 1959 Chicago. Literature Live! a free program for student audiences, creates compelling drama from the page to the stage bringing together professional theater artists. Since its inception, Literature Live! has served over 30,000 students from nearly 60 public, private and home schools across Long Island stretching from Great Neck to Montauk. In 2018 alone, 29 schools participated with 32 performances reaching over 3,491 students!

Lydia Fort has directed at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Diversionary Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Women's Project Theatre, Women Center Stage, Urban Stages, McCarter Theatre YouthInk! Festival, New Federal Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, Classical Theatre of Harlem, freeFall Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Planet Connections Festivity (where she was honored with the 2013 Best Director and Greener Planet Awards) as well as other festivals including the New Black Fest, 48 Hours in Harlem, Fire This Time Festival, and SheWrites. She was a Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the 2012-2014 Lab at Women's Project Theater, a TCG New Generations Future Leaders Grantee, New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow, and Drama League Directing Fellow. Lydia received a BA from New York University and an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington. She is an Assistant Professor at Emory University where she teaches directing, acting, African American theatre, and eco-theatre.

Lorraine Hansberry wrote the ground-breaking play A Raisin in the Sun in 1959. The play focuses on the Younger family, an African-American family who lives on the Southside of Chicago in an apartment tenement. The hope of escape from the suffocating tenement comes in the form of a $10,000 insurance check courtesy of the family's deceased patriarch. Each member of the Younger family has their own version of the American Dream that the insurance money could fulfill: Lena, the mother, wants to purchase a house in the all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park, Walter Lee, the son, wants to invest in a liquor store, Ruth, his wife, simply wants their child Travis to have his own room, while Beneatha, Walter's sister, wants to become a doctor. The Younger family eventually unify their dreams and take on the racist and segregationist policies of the time in a transcendent climax. Experience a great piece of American theater this fall that holds its own with other American classics like Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire in the intimate setting of Bay Street Theater.

Literature Live! is funded by Century Arts Foundation, the Bay Street Theater Board of Trustees, The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, Colgate-Palmolive, Dana Foundation, Fridolin Charitable Trust, Theatre Venture, Inc., Town of Southampton, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Irving Stern Foundation, the Sunny and Abe Rosenberg Foundation, the Campbell Family Foundation and many generous individuals. Sponsors: AARP Long Island, Grenning Gallery, and Sag Harbor Books. Media sponsors: Dan's Papers, WBAZ, WEHM, and WLNG.

The Box Office is currently open Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 5 pm. To purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or order online at baystreet.org.

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