Bay Street's Literature Live! to Present A RAISIN IN THE SUN

 

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts announces 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 its student and public audiences in this, the sixtieth anniversary of the play's first production on Broadway. Public performances are Thursday through Saturday, November 14-16, 21-23, and Thanksgiving weekend 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.

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.

Lydia Fort has directed at Cygnet Theatre, 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.

Literature Live! is a BOCES-approved Arts-in-Education program. Plays chosen are from the standards-based literature and are supported with teacher-developed lesson plans and reference materials. All performances are 90 minutes and weekday shows are followed by a question and answer session. Bay Street Theater is committed to supporting students who have little or no access to the performing arts in schools. Now in its 11th season, the program has successfully served over 60 schools and nearly 30,000 students and their educators. School groups from across Long Island are invited to attend each year through a Free Student Ticket initiative supported by donors. School groups can reserve free tickets for their group by contacting mary@baystreet.org.

Literature Live! is sponsored by Century Arts Foundation, The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, Susan Dusenberry, Susan Edwards & Ian Ziskin, Dana Foundation, Jane Holden, In Memory of Sloane Shelton, The Moxie Foundation, Mary Lou & Sal Ranieri, Nancy Stearns, Theatre Venture, Inc., Town of Southampton and AARP Long Island. The project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Irving Stern Foundation, and the Sunny and Abe Rosenberg Foundation. Media sponsors are Dan's Papers, WBAZ, WEHM, WLNG.

The Box Office is currently open daily from 11 am - showtime. After September 3, the Box Office will be open Tuesday - Saturday 11 am - 5 pm. To purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 631-725-9500 or order online at baystreet.org.

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center which endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. It serves as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.

Photo Credit: Lenny Stucker

 

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