{"value"=>"<p>The play for which Hansberry is best known, has the most substantial body of material in the collection. The files document the various media in which the play was produced; stage, movie and television productions, with production material for each venue.</p> <p>Hansberry began writing A Raisin in the Sun in 1956. The title comes from a line in Langston Hughes' 1951 poem \"Montage of a Dream Deferred\". The story is semi-autobiographical in its portrayal of a black family living in Chicago and their decision to buy a house in a white neighborhood. After the play's rejection by several producers who believed that \"white audiences aren't interested in a Negro play\", Hansberry read it to her friends, Burt D'Lugoff and Philip Rose. Impressed, Rose decided to produce the play. The cast included Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Lou Gossett, and Ivan Dixon; the director was Lloyd Richards. The 1959 tryouts in New Haven, Philadelphia and Chicago were well received and the play opened in Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959. A Raisin in the Sun proved to be a hit with 530 performances (66 weeks) and went on to a successful tour during the 1960-1961 season. The first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway with a largely black cast, A Raisin in the Sun won the New York Critics Circle Award as the best drama of the year. It was also the first play on Broadway to be directed by a black director in more than fifty years. A Raisin in the Sun has been published and produced in about thirty languages abroad and in thousands of productions in the United States, becoming an American classic.</p> <p>The files for A Raisin in the Sun are arranged by type of production, with the appropriate script appearing first, followed by production material. The latter material is arranged chronologically. The material consists of several versions of the play script including the original with Hansberry's annotations, congratulatory telegrams sent on opening night, programs for the Broadway production and reviews for the out-of-town tryouts and the Broadway opening. An immediate success, many professional and amateur companies wanted to produce the play; permissions to perform given by Hansberry and Nemiroff, and to publish the play, granted by Nemiroff, are included in the collection. There are programs and reviews for professional productions including a 1960 tour and a 1975 revival with Claudia McNeil. Correspondence with Samuel French, Inc. regarding stock company and amateur group rights to the play provides information about the wide interest the play garnered across the United States; programs and reviews also represent these productions.</p> <p>The 25th Broadway anniversary of the production of A Raisin in the Sun was celebrated during the 1983-1985 seasons with performances produced by numerous professional and amateur groups across the United States. Notable performances were given at Brooklyn College (New York), Chicago, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Yale University and London where it ran for two months. Promotional material and plans drawn up by Nemiroff are included. Other material consists of some programs and reviews.</p> <p>The next major revival was the Roundabout Theatre production (New York.) Nemiroff restored scenes that had been cut from the original production and the critically-acclaimed play toured in 1986-1987 to Baltimore, Washington D. C.'s Kennedy Center, and to Los Angeles. The touring production starred Esther Rolle, Delroy Lindo, Starletta DuPois and Kim Yancey. The material consists of files related to auditions and casting, programs and reviews. The Los Angeles performance is represented by the greatest amount of material which includes promotional events on radio and television, press advertisements, interviews with Nemiroff, group sales, box office receipts, and information regarding an NAACP award given to the play by the Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch.</p> <p>Additional professional and amateur productions appeared in the United States following the Roundabout production. Correspondence, programs and reviews comprise this material (1989-1999). Foreign productions in the Czech Republic, England, the Soviet Union, among other countries, are represented by correspondence, requests to produce and publish, programs and reviews.</p> <p>The play has evoked a great amount of interest from the general public and scholars since it was first produced. As such, it has been the subject of criticism by intellectuals of all races and nationalities. Both Nemiroff and Gresham-Nemiroff gathered this criticism and included it in the collection (1959-1988).</p> <p>Between 1959-1960 Hansberry wrote two screenplays of A Raisin in the Sun that more clearly emphasized the racial theme than did the Broadway production. According to Hansberry, Columbia Pictures insisted on a less controversial script more in line with the stage play. The 1961 movie is essentially the stage play with minor variations. Her original screenplay, 40% of which was not included in the movie version, contained new scenes with more powerful and insightful dialogue. The movie version also starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands and Lou Gossett, Jr., with Daniel Petrie directing. The 1961 film version won an award at the Cannes Film festival and was nominated for the best screenplay of the year by the Screen Actors Writers Guild. The collection contains several versions of the screenplay with some annotations by both Hansberry and Nemiroff (1959-1961), translations in Czech and French, reviews and memoranda. Also included in the collection is one file of Nemiroff's notes pertaining to the recorded version of A Raisin in the Sun (1972). A Signet edition of the book annotated by Nemiroff for this production accompanies the file.</p> <p>In 1989, the American Playhouse produced a television production of A Raisin in the Sun, and restored to the play two scenes unknown to the general public, as well as a number of other key scenes and passages staged for the first time in the twenty-fifth anniversary revivals. The television production starred Danny Glover and Esther Rolle, and was produced by Chiz Schultz. The collection contains Nemiroff's working copy of the script (1988) which he edited for this production as well as schedules and contact sheets. There is also a proposal for funding and material related to the production such as budgets, a letter from Danny Glover, and production plans. A large portion of the files are devoted to nationwide reviews of the production which aired February 1, 1989. Nemiroff's application for an Emmy Award and promotional material for the videocassette demonstrate some of the ways Nemiroff promoted Hansberry's major play and are included in the file. Also in the collection is a copy of Nemiroff's introduction to the 1988 New American Library edition of the play script which discusses and includes the reinstated scenes as originally written by Hansberry.</p> <p>A total of thirty-seven published books (1959-1992) including original versions of A Raisin in the Sun, reprinted alone or in anthologies of plays by other authors, textbooks, school versions and study aids for students, excerpts, critical analyses, \"marked copies\", and translations in Arabic and German, round out the files for A Raisin in the Sun.</p> <p>Among the Samuel French published versions is the edition with the restored scenes, lines and passages which had been deleted from the original script. This final version of the play script was published in 1992 by Nemiroff's widow, Jewell Gresham-Nemiroff, who wrote the foreword to the edition. This version is actually the unfilmed original screenplay which restored all earlier deletions.</p>"}