After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters.

A literary biography including:
-A critical, interpretive study of the author's works.
-A brief biography of the author.
-A chronology outlining the life, the work, and relevant historical context

This entire issue of the historic journal, Freedomways, is devoted to articles on Lorraine Hansberry and her work.

See chapter 11. Lorraine Hansberry and the End of Postwar Cool.
Less biography and more the author's analysis of Hansberry's social, philosophical, and political views. -- If you want to go into more depth in that area.

New York Times newspaper article, Tuesday, April 27th, 2004.

Yale Rep Version - 1988
Actors: Starletta DuPois, Lou Ferguson, John Fiedler, Danny Glover, Stephen Henderson

Special features: about the author, in her words, about the play, about the cast, study guide.

Actors: Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Justin Martin

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon

Useful information on early Raisin production history.

Table of Contents:
--Literary Analysis: A Raisin in the Sun, Themes and Structure
--Historical Context: Integration and Segregation
--Historical Context: Africa, Africans, and African Americans
--A Raisin in the Sun and the Chicago Literary Tradition
--Interpretations of Gender in African American Relationships
--Contemporary Race Relations

Philip Rose produced the play on Broadway. This is his memoir so it's a long narrative that covers "Raisin" and other plays. Use the index to find the sections on Lorraine Hansberry.

Traces the development of black theater in America by examining the work of the theater's five most productive playwrights: Willis Richardson, Randolph Edmonds, Langston Hughes, LeRoi Jones, and Ed Bullins. -- Publisher description.

More than 600 entries dealing with playwrights, producers, directors, actors, plays, theater companies, and awards. There is a useful chronology on p. xix in the front of the book that lists, year by year, significant events in African American theater history from the 18th century through 2008.

Picture is of paperback edition -- our hardback copy has a black cover.
Very thorough historical coverage.
See in particular chapter 12, "From Hansberry to Shange."

In Reimagining “A Raisin in the Sun,” Rebecca Ann Rugg and Harvey Young bring together four contemporary plays—including 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner Clybourne Park—that, in their engagement with Hansberry’s play, illuminate the tensions and anxieties that still surround neighborhood integration.

"The study begins with a brief discussion of the African origins of African American theater. It then moves into an analysis of the many women playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance who are rarely mentioned in most literary studies of the era. In the third chapter the focus narrows on the three playwrights who constitute the core of the study: Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, and Ntozake Shange. In addition to a discussion of each of their major plays, Brown-Guillory analyzes the tonal and structural forms of their plays and the images of blacks each woman creates. The three playwrights are linked in this study by their portrayal of the black struggle in an inhumane society and by their common focus in the `spirit of survival' of African Americans." Choice Magazine

“There are several bonuses in this book. Short biographies and lists of achievements are inserted for each playwright at the beginning of their sections. (Some playwrights have more than one play.) Brown-Guillory includes a synopsis and analysis of each play along with a short description of the characters. A selected bibliography and an index enhance the usefulness of these plays.” WLW Journal

See chapter on Lorraine Hansberry.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

See chapter 2 on Lorraine Hansberry.

See chapter 2, on Lorraine Hansberry.

See chapter 9, Reracializing the ordinary American Family: Raisin in the Sun.
-Lorraine Hansberry’s South Side Childhood
-Leaving Home, Stepping “Deliberately Against the Beat”
-The Freedom Family and the Black Left
-“I Am a Writer”: Hansberry in Greenwich Village
-Raisin in the Sun: Hansberry’s Conception, Audience Reception
-Frozen in the Frame: The Film of Raisin
-Visions of Belonging

See chapter 9, Reracializing the ordinary American Family: Raisin in the Sun.
-Lorraine Hansberry’s South Side Childhood
-Leaving Home, Stepping “Deliberately Against the Beat”
-The Freedom Family and the Black Left
-“I Am a Writer”: Hansberry in Greenwich Village
-Raisin in the Sun: Hansberry’s Conception, Audience Reception
-Frozen in the Frame: The Film of Raisin
-Visions of Belonging

Look at CHAPTER 1 Repetition/reproduction: the DNA of black expressive culture

Presenting an innovative approach to performance studies and literary history, Soyica Colbert argues for the centrality of black performance traditions to African American literature, including preaching, dancing, blues and gospel, and theatre itself, showing how these performance traditions create the'performative ground'of African American literary texts. Across a century of literary production using the physical space of the theatre and the discursive space of the page, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, August Wilson and others deploy performances to re-situate black people in time and space. The study examines African American plays past and present, including A Raisin in the Sun, Blues for Mister Charlie and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, demonstrating how African American dramatists stage black performances in their plays as acts of recuperation and restoration, creating sites that have the potential to repair the damage caused by slavery and its aftermath.

This link will take you to the recording on Spotify. This album is also availble in CD format inthe library catalog

Music by Judd Woldin ; lyrics by Robert Brittan ; book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg.
Principal cast: Ernestine Jackson (Ruth Younger); Ralph Carter (Travis Younger); Helen Martin (Mrs. Johnson); Joe Morton (Walter Lee Younger); Debbie Allen (Beneatha Younger); Virgina Capers (Mama Lena Younger); Robert Jackson (Joseph Asagai).

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

See index for Lorraine Hansberry and others.

Presenting an innovative approach to performance studies and literary history, Soyica Colbert argues for the centrality of black performance traditions to African American literature, including preaching, dancing, blues and gospel, and theatre itself, showing how these performance traditions create the'performative ground'of African American literary texts. Across a century of literary production using the physical space of the theatre and the discursive space of the page, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, August Wilson and others deploy performances to re-situate black people in time and space. The study examines African American plays past and present, including A Raisin in the Sun, Blues for Mister Charlie and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, demonstrating how African American dramatists stage black performances in their plays as acts of recuperation and restoration, creating sites that have the potential to repair the damage caused by slavery and its aftermath.

See chapter 2, The Negro Renaissance, Harlem and Chicago Flowerings.

Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The contributors to this volume analyze this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a number of American theatres and theatre artists fostered interracial collaboration and socialization on stage, behind the scenes, and among audiences. In an era marked by entrenched racial segregation and inequality, these artists used performance to bridge America's persistent racial divide and to bring African American, Latino/Latina, Asian American, Native American, and Jewish American communities and traditions into the nation's broader cultural conversation.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

See chapter 2 on Lorraine Hansberry.

A Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing Groups