Lorraine Hansberry News

 Skylight Music Theatre today announced the cast and creative team for Raisin, running April 8-24, 2022. Raisin is an uplifting musical adaptation of the award-winning play, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Raisin won the 1974 Tony Award and the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Musical.

Certainly, almost every American can talk about how we are descendants of immigrants who dreamed of living in a free country and did whatever was necessary to arrive on our shores. As a direct descendant of four grandparents and one parent who escaped from Eastern Europe in the early 20th Century, when I read about the Fountain Theatre presenting the world premiere of DETAINED, written by The Lily's 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Award-winning playwright France-Luce Benson, 'a gripping new docudrama composed of a compilation of true stories that explores the rippling impact of mass deportations on families,' I knew I wanted to speak with her about her inspiration and vision for the play.

Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director Kip Williams last night unveiled Act 2 of its 2022 season, nine shows to round out the year from May to December which he says are “the result of the perseverance and boundless dreaming our artists and creative teams have done during successive lockdowns”.

Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director Kip Williams last night unveiled Act 2 of their 2022 season, nine shows to round out the year from May to December which he says are “the result of the perseverance and boundless dreaming our artists and creative teams have done during successive lockdowns”. 

Magic Theatre will welcome a one-of-a-kind world premiere theatrical event from resident company Campo Santo: A “listening” of Bennett Fisher’s pandemic thriller SHELTER.

American Blues Theater, under the continued leadership of Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside, presents a live, online reading of Origin Story by Nathan Alan Davis, directed by Ensemble member Manny Buckley, as part of “The Room” series. The play will be live on Friday, February 25 at 7pm. 

Originally scheduled to open the theater’s 2021–2022 subscription season in January 2022, the show was later postponed due to cases of COVID-19 among vaccinated members of the company. A Raisin in the Sun will now play April 30 – June 5, 2022, on the McGuire Proscenium Stage. 

...it is as fine a theatrical treatment of this oft-produced - not though not oft enough - play as I’ve ever seen

The Vancouver International Film Festival announced this year’s Black History Month programme, taking place at the VIFF Centre throughout February. Black History Month at VIFF offers audiences an opportunity to engage with Black stories from a range of Black voices from around the world, as well as the richness of international nuanced and empowered Black filmmaking.

Skylight Music Theatre announced that the musical Raisin will be rescheduled to April 8-24, 2022. The much-anticipated production required a scheduling change after other shows in Skylight’s schedule were postponed due to positive COVID-19 cases among the fully vaccinated company.

For their third production in the 21-22 season, Forward Theater Company will present The Mytilenean Debate by local author and Forward Writer in Residence, Quan Barry. Performances are in the Playhouse at Overture Center for the Arts, February 24 - March 13.

Casting has been announced for the West Coast premiere of playwright Jeremy O. Harris' unflinching new work “Slave Play” coming to Los Angeles at the Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum February 9 through March 13, 2022, opening February 16, 2022.

How do families stay together, even when they are kept apart? The Fountain Theatre presents a gripping new docudrama, a compilation of true stories that explores the rippling impact of mass deportations on families. The world premiere of Detained, written by 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Award-winning playwright France-Luce Benson and directed by Mark Valdez, winner of the 2021 Zelda Fichandler Award, opens February 19 at the Fountain Theatre.

To commemorate the life of prolific actor, director and cultural icon Sidney Poitier, the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of Broadway theatres in New York for one minute on Wednesday, January 19 at exactly 7:45PM.

In March, New Conservatory Theatre Center will produce critically-acclaimed playwright Colman Domingo's Dot. Full of love, laughter, and absolute chaos, this moving and hilarious play offers a look at a woman losing herself in the past and the family trying to keep her in the present.

 Magic Theatre (Sean San José, Artistic Director and Kevin Nelson, Managing Director) is pleased to announce the cast and creative team for the World Premiere of Miranda Rose Hall’s THE KIND ONES. Directed by Lisa Peterson, THE KIND ONES will perform from February 2 – 20, 2022* at Magic Theatre’s Fort Mason location (Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., Building D, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94123).

The stage directions that introduce Katori Hall's The Mountaintop are simple – but their import is weighty. Hall's play imagines the last night of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life. He's just delivered one of his most lauded speeches, 'I've Been to the Mountaintop', and is struggling to write his next, when there's a knock at the door; his encounter with a mysterious woman, sent to deliver him coffee, sends his world into a tailspin.

The Guthrie Theater today announced changes to its 2021–2022 Season performance calendar amid ongoing challenges and concerns due to COVID-19.

The Guthrie Theater today announced changes to its 2021–2022 Season performance calendar amid ongoing challenges and concerns due to COVID-19. The Guthrie has decided to postpone Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, which was scheduled to begin January 12, 2022. 

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation announced today that is it now accepting applications from host theatres for the 2022 Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency program until February 4, 2022.