Overview
Synopsis
A Raisin in the Sun is a play about dreams; what it means to dream big, to lose faith in your dreams, and to discover new dreams. It is also a story about family. We meet the Younger family the day before they are getting a $10,000 insurance check from the death of the father, Walter Younger. We watch as different members of the family have different ideas of how to use the money: Mama wants to buy a house with a little garden in the back, Walter Lee Younger (their son) wants to invest in a liquor store, Ruth (Walter Lee’s wife) wants a house with some space and a nice kitchen, and Beneatha (Walter Lee’s sister) wants to go to medical school. Tensions increase as each member of the family tries to get their own way, eventually threatening to break apart their foundation completely. The stakes continue to climb as questions about identity, class, value, race, and love become forefront issues, and outsiders to the family make it impossible to forget the world that the Younger family cannot seem to escape.
Show Information
- Book
- Lorraine Hansberry
- Category
- Play
- Age Guidance
- Thirteen Plus (PG-13)
- Number of Acts
- 3
- First Produced
- 1959
- Genres
- Drama
- Settings
- Simple/No Set
- Time & Place
- chicago's southside, 1950s
- Cast Size
- medium
- Licensor
- Concord Theatricals
- Ideal For
- community theater, black box, regional, university, College/University, Community Theatre, Diverse Cast, Ensemble Cast, High School, Professional Theatre, Regional Theatre, Star Vehicle Male, Mostly Male Cast, Includes Mature Adult, Adult, Young Adult, Child Characters, Medium Cast
Context
Harlem
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat
Or crust and sugar over--
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Lorraine Hansberry found her inspiration to write A Raisin in the Sun from the Langston Hughes poem Harlem as well as from her own life experiences growing up in a hostile, racially charged environment. _A
to read the context for A Raisin in the Sun and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Plot
ACT I
Scene 1
The lights come up as the alarm clock begins to ring. Travis (Walter Lee and Ruth’s 10 year old son) is asleep on the living room couch, the only bedroom he has. Ruth enters sleepily and tries to wake him up. After her third attempt, Travis gets up groggily and goes into the bathroom which is in the hallway and is shared by the other tenants on the floor (unfortunately including the Johnsons down the hall). Ruth begins to make breakfast, soon realizing that Walter Lee is
to read the plot for A Raisin in the Sun and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Characters
| Name | Part Size | Gender | Vocal Part |
|---|---|---|---|
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Lead |
Female |
Non-singer |
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Lead |
Female |
Non-singer |
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Lead |
Female |
Non-singer |
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Lead |
Male |
Non-singer |
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Supporting |
Male |
Non-singer |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
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Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
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Featured |
Female |
Spoken |
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Ensemble |
Male |
|
Songs
A song with an asterisk (*) before the title indicates a dance number; a character listed in a song with an asterisk (*) by the character's name indicates that the character exclusively serves as a dancer in this song, which is sung by other characters.
Monologues
Scenes
Key Terms
Taking on the habits, behaviors, and attitudes of another, often dominant, culture.
A period in which approximately 1.6 million African-Americans left the rural Southern states to seek greater social freedom and the labor opportunities in Northern industrial cities between 1916 and 1940.
A cultural movement in early twentieth-century America that celebrated and advocated for the art, literature, music, fashion, and theatre of African-American communities.
The name given to the Harlem Renaissance at the time, named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke.
The mythological Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humans. As punishment by Zeus, he was chained to a rock and an eagle ate his liver every day until he was freed by Hercules.
An objective of the Civil Rights movement, eliminating social, economic, political, educational, and civic barriers based on race.
A hopeless situation with no possibility of improvement; a dilapidated structure.
The enforced separation of groups of people, often based on race.
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