She insisted that “one of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing is that, in order to create the universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific.”

In part, Hansberry agreed, saying, “I don’t think there is anything more universal in the world than man’s oppression to man.” But she argued that her characters were distinctly Negro and even more specifically from Chicago’s South Side. This implied that the story would be the same if the black characters were replaced with white ones. The white press applauded the play for not being only a “Negro play” but one that was a universal drama.

Directed by Lloyd Richards, the original cast included Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Lou Gossett, Glynn Turman and Diana Sands. They had trouble finding a Broadway theater to stage the play until the success of the out-of-town tryouts in New Haven, Conn., Philadelphia and Chicago. It took about a year for producers Philip Rose and David Cogan to raise enough money from 150 investors to finance the play. A Raisin in the Sun marked the turning point for black artists in professional theater. Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. It ran for 530 performances and won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play of the year, edging out plays by Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams. It was the first play written by an African American to be produced on Broadway and the first to be directed by an African American in over half a century. A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Barrymore Theatre in New York on March 11, 1959, to great popular and critical success.

Hansberry lorraine a raisin in the sun