RAISIN Musical to Return to NYC After 42-Year Hiatus This Spring

The award-winning Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC) will present a limited engagement of the critically acclaimed musical Raisin this Spring. Winner of the 1974 Tony Award for Best Musical and based on Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play, this timeless musical will return to New York City after a 42-year hiatus, May 4 - 27, 2017, at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 30-44 Crescent St (at 30th Road), Astoria, NY 11102.

Starring: Warren G. Nolan, Jr.* (Rent National Tour), Brandi Knox* (Dreamgirls, Hairspray at the Signature Theater, VA), Sarita Amani Nash (The First Noel at Classical Theater of Harlem), Ebony Marshall-Oliver* (Dreamgirls at Dallas Theater Center), Chinua B. Payne with Cartreze Tucker (A Strange Loop at 54 Below, Sister Act at White Plains Performing Arts Center), Greg Horton* (APAC's Merrily We Roll Along, two-time New York Innovative Theater Award Winner for Best Actor), Marcie Henderson* (APAC's Allegro, The Gift of Music at The York Theatre), Joi Danielle Price* (Mamma Mia! on Broadway), Erich McMillan-McCall* (Chicago, The Who's Tommy on Broadway, Artistic Director of Project 1 Voice), Shabazz Green* (Little Rock at Passage Theater, NJ), Tony Perry* (APAC's Allegro, More Than All the World at Theater For a New City), AaRon Casey* (The Brontes at NY Theatre Barn's New Work Series), Chris Gwynn* (The House of Von Macramé at The Bushwick Starr), Vanessa Robinson (APAC's Ragtime, Big Fish at 4th Wall Theater), Alicia Thomas (Angela's Justice at Theater For a New City) and Maia Bedford.

Creative Team: Dev Bondarin (Director), Darius Smith (Musical Director), Tamrin Goldberg (Choreographer), Jeannipher Pacheco (Costume Designer), Lawrence E. Moten, III (Set Designer), Adam Honoré (Lighting Designer), Emma Wilk (Sound Designer), Michael Cassara, CSA (Casting Director), Jessica Pecharsky* (Production Stage Manager), Vanna Richardson (Assistant Stage Manager), and David Shocket (Assistant Lighting Designer).

In segregated 1950s Chicago, Walter Lee Younger and his mother, Lena, fight over the spending of insurance money. He wants to start a business with friends, while she is eager to move the family out of the South Side and into a white middle-class neighborhood. Pulsing with the musical beat of the city, Raisin depicts a black family's struggle in the face of change.

Raisin, an adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, won the 1974 Tony Award for Best Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Score from the Original Cast Album, and a national tour followed. APAC's production will be the first time the show has been fully produced in New York City since its initial Broadway run.

IF YOU GO:

Astoria Performing Arts Center presents Raisin

Book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg

Music by Judd Woldin

Lyrics by Robert Brittan

Based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

Directed by Dev Bondarin

May 4 - 27, 2017

PRESS PREVIEWS:
Thursday, May 4 at 8 p.m.
Friday May 5 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 6 at 2 p.m. or 8 p.m.

Tickets: $18 General / $12 Students / Tickets are on sale now at: www.apacny.org

Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC), a not-for-profit organization founded in 2001. APAC's mission is to bring high-quality theater to Astoria, Queens, and to support local youth and senior citizens through community programs at schools, senior centers and our performance venue.

The critically acclaimed organization provides quality mainstage musicals and plays to the diverse Western Queens community. To date, APAC has received 41 New York Innovative Theatre Award nominations and six wins (including three for Outstanding Musical Production for Merrily We Roll Along, Allegro, and Children of Eden), as well as an Off-Off Broadway Theatre Review Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical (Is There Life After High School?). APAC was also the recipient of the 2012 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award.

*Member of Actors' Equity Association. An Equity Approved Showcase.
Raisin is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.