The University of Chicago's Court Theatre is currently staging Lorraine Hansberry’s acclaimed play, "A Raisin in the Sun," just blocks away from its original setting on the South Side of Chicago. This marks the first time the theater has presented Hansberry's work, which was groundbreaking as the first play by a Black woman to appear on Broadway.
Gabrielle Randle-Bent, Court Theatre's Senior Artistic Producer and director of this production, emphasized the significance of bringing this story back to its roots. “This is a play that’s about the South Side of Chicago—not just in the 1950s, but the South Side of Chicago that began at the dawn of the Great Migration and continues to live with us today,” she stated.
Hansberry drew inspiration for her play partly from her own family history. In 1937, her father purchased a home in Woodlawn, a predominantly white neighborhood at that time. Facing legal challenges due to restrictive covenants aimed at preventing Black families from buying homes there, Hansberry's father eventually won his case at the Supreme Court.
Running through March 9, "A Raisin in the Sun" will be accompanied by public programs such as reading series and discussions on housing justice. Randle-Bent shared insights into staging this classic piece: “Our scenic designer, Andrew Boyce, found the floor plan of a historic kitchenette apartment and shrunk it by 20%. It felt really important to me that the main conflict of the play was the house.”
Randle-Bent also reflected on how close history feels when performing this work near its real-life backdrop: “This isn't some distant, far-off story; Beneatha is my grandmother's age.” She expressed hope that audiences would see their lives represented truthfully on stage: “For someone to say, ‘That's not a sanitized version of my life and my history...but that's my life and my history on stage,’ would be a really big gift.”
Court Theatre plans to make Hansberry’s work an integral part of their repertoire moving forward. As Randle-Bent remarked: "It's our Christmas Carol; we should be doing it all the time."
"A Raisin in The Sun" runs until March 9. More information can be found on Court Theatre's website.