Lorraine Hansberry News

Up next in its 2022 season, Oakland Theater Project (OTP) presents the first-ever Bay Area production of the 1989 play The Mojo and the Sayso by Aishah Rahman, a writer, professor and active participant in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. 

The 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize has chosen Jeremy O. Harris, the Yale alum and Tony-nominated author of Slave Play, as the presiding playwright for its landmark 15th anniversary year. As his first order of business, Harris is assembling an international group of readers to help evaluate submissions as part of a larger effort to infuse the process with a more global point-of-view.

OPERA America has announced the second round recipients of the 2022 Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors. The program incentivizes companies to hire women in these key artistic roles. These hires enrich the production and performance of new operas and works from the inherited repertoire; introduce audiences to the talent and insight of new artists; and inspire future generations of creative artists who identify as women.

The World premiere production of Dave Harris’ new work, “Tambo & Bones,” opened in Los Angeles at the Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre on May 8 and continues through May 29. Go inside opening night below!

See what BWW's critic thinks about this production.

'What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?' In 1951, poet Langston Hughes posed these questions, and Lorraine Hansberry answered with a theatrical masterpiece that broke down racial barriers both on and off the stage. The play follows the three-generation Younger family as they grapple with different definitions of the American dream and how to achieve it. When the matriarch, Lena, buys a home in an all-white neighborhood, the Youngers are greeted by thinly veiled racism and financial pitfalls that threaten to pull the family apart and push their dreams out of reach.

Dirt Dogs Theatre Co. will present the award-winning Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, directed by Ron Jones.

  Seattle Rep today announced a second round of its large-scale playwright commission project, 20x30: Reimagining the Anthropocene, in which the organization has commissioned three playwrights in an effort to plants seeds for the future of the industry.

B. MOORE DANCE returns to the stage, May 27-29, 2022 for exhilarating performances of a World Premiere, i am magic, at Addison Theatre Centre, Friday/Saturday, 8:00 PM and Sunday, 3:00 PM.

The Off Broadway Alliance, an organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, has announced the nominees for the 11th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, honoring commercial and not-for-profit productions that opened Off Broadway during the 2021-2022 season. 

The first museum exhibition of its kind, Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898–1971 opens at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on August 21, 2022. It offers the public a chance to learn more about how Black performers and filmmakers have helped define cinema in the United States. The exhibition explores the achievements and challenges of both independent production and the studio system, from cinema’s infancy in the 1890s through the height of the civil rights movement. Regeneration features rarely seen excerpts of films restored by the Academy Film Archive, as well as other narrative films and documentaries; newsreels and home movies; photographs; scripts; drawings; costumes; equipment; posters; and historical materials, such as entrance tickets, note cards, and telegrams; along with augmented reality experiences (AR) designed specifically for the exhibition.

The World premiere production of Dave Harris' new work, “Tambo & Bones,” opens in Los Angeles at the Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre on May 8 at 6:30 p.m. and continues through May 29. A co-production with Playwrights Horizons, this explosive new work from one of the country's fastest rising playwrights will be directed by Taylor Reynolds.

Woolly Mammoth’s upcoming 2022-2023 season is a break-out collection of unconventional storytelling, filled with characters who upend roles, rules, and regimes, and authentic, in-your-face playwriting voices.

The season will open with Bruce Norris’ Tony, Olivier and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Clybourne Park,” directed by Kurt Naebig (Sept. 8 – Oct. 9).  It will be followed by Alan Ayckbourn’s feisty holiday comedy, “Season’s Greetings,” directed by Connie Canaday Howard (Nov. 17 – Dec. 18). With a nod to the Cleve Carney Museum of Art/MAC summer 2023 exhibition “Warhol,” BTE will complete the season with Vince Melocchi’s fictional play “Andy Warhol’s Tomato” directed by Steve Scott (Feb. 2 – March 5).

Village Preservation; the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project; the owner of Julius’ Bar, located at 159 West 10th Street; special guest, Broadway star John Cameron Mitchell; LGBT activist and 1966 “Sip-In” participant, Randy Wicker; and others gathered for the unveiling of a plaque to acknowledge Julius’ significance to LGBT activism and history. 

Custom Made Theatre Co. (Brian Katz, Executive Artistic Director) continues its 23rd season with the Bay Area Premiere of “Blood at the Root” by trailblazing playwright Dominique Morisseau, directed and choreographed by Darryl V. Jones. 

Casting has been announced for the World premiere production of Dave Harris’ new work, “Tambo & Bones,” coming to Los Angeles at the Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre May 1 through May 29, 2022, opening May 8, 2022.

For a moving musical portrait of 1950s Black American life, Raisin is certainly one to see.

The Magic Theatre has announced the cast and creative team for the World Premiere of Sam Chanse’s Monument, Or Four Sisters ( A Sloth Play).

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Theatre Company has announced dramaturg, producer, and playwright Reginald Edmund is joining the DCPA Artistic Team as the Literary Manager.