Preview

Raisin in the Sun

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
5213 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Raisin in the Sun
Great Midwestern Educational Theatre Company’s

Study Guide for

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Table of Contents
& Production Information

Table of Contents

• Dear Educator… • About the Play • Historical Issues • Educational Issues • Housing & Neighborhood Class Issues • Empowerment, Employment, & Diversity • Family Values, Family Roles

Production Staff

Director: Amy Ressler
Stage Manager: Marquita Jones
Set Design: Marc Muehleip
Lighting Design: Cole Muth
Sound Design: Greg Griffin
Costume Design: Gloria Fitzpatrick
Properties: Gretel Winterwood, Marquita Jones
Grand Tech Director: J.T. Moore
Venue: The Grand Opera House of Dubuque

Cast

Mama Lena: Rhonda Anderson
Beneatha: Lindsey Reiter
Walter Lee Younger: Joemi Byrd
Ruth Younger: Cammie Dean
Travis Younger: Viola Dean
George Murchison: Thackery Carter
Lindner: Rich Hall
Bobo: Eugene Gilllenwater
Joseph Assegai: Nicholas M. Ngatia

Thank you to our sponsors!

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Dubuque
Dubuque Chapter of the NAACP
First Baptist Church of Dubuque
Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque
Dear Educator…

Thank you for your interest in A Raisin in the Sun, a special project of the Great Midwestern Educational Theatre Company (GMETC). We are looking forward to your upcoming visit to our performance.

This Study Guide includes a variety of activities and discussion questions that focus on themes of social concern in the play. The activities and questions are aimed at students from the 8-12th grades. Please look over the activities carefully and select the items that you feel are most appropriate for your students’ developmental levels.

Getting Ready to See the Play

1. Take time before the performance to share a synopsis of the story with your class. Knowing what the show is about helps to avoid confusion.

2. Discuss with your students some of
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Raisin in the Sun-English
    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Raisin in the Sun-English

    “Mom we have to do something with the $10,000 what do you want to do with it”, I wish my family had $10,000 and needed my help to find out what to do with it. I probably would open up a family store or something. After viewing the movie and reading the play that was a good idea with what the mom planned to do but Walter should have never opened the liquor store after mom was undecided about getting one, but she let him do it anyway.…

    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    raisin in the sun
    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages

    raisin in the sun

    In the book A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Act 2 Scene 3 Ruth started of the scene by dancing in in the family’s house. She’s very excited that they are going to be moving out in a week, to live in Clybourne Park. The man (Karl Linder) arrived at the family’s house and he told the family why they shouldn’t move in or buy the house in Clybourne Park. He stated to them that the younger ones will destroy their community because they are black, all the residents that were in his community were white. Karl kept trying to find ways for them to not move, so he then tried to offer them more money than they were to pay for the house in exchange for not moving to Clybourne Park. Walter, Ruth and Berneatha had all got upset because of what Karl tried to offer them. Walter then told Mr. Linder that they will not accept the offer and he had demanded Mr. Linder to leave.…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Walter Lee's A Raisin In The Sun
    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Walter Lee's A Raisin In The Sun

    Everyone knows that feeling where they will do anything they can do make their dream/dreams come true. The Younger family knows this feeling all a little too well. Walter Lee, the main character in this play, had the dream of going into the liquor business and never having to worry about money again. When the Mama and the family get a check in the mail for $10,000, Walter tries everything in his power to succeed his dream. But when a series of unfortunate events occur, Walter has to figure out what the right thing to do is for him and his family. In this play, Walter Lee’s dream wavers between rotten meat, an explosion, and a syrupy sweet.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Raisin in the Sun
    • 30520 Words
    • 123 Pages

    Raisin in the Sun

    The YOUNGER living room would comfortable wellbe a and ordered roomifitwere for a not number of indestructible contradictions to this stateofbeing. furnishings andunIts typical are…

    • 30520 Words
    • 123 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry
    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page

    A Raisin In The Sun By Lorraine Hansberry

    Do you have a dream? Of course you do, everybody has some sort of a dream. Some have a dream for themselves and some for others. A dream is an image or a thought of something that you wish to be true, most of the time for the better. In a raisin in the sun, Lorraine Hansberry reveals the importance of dreams in many different ways, the most important being money.…

    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun. Book Review
    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A Raisin in the Sun. Book Review

    A Raisin In The Sun, is a book about a family, well, one family in particular. The Younger family is a rather normal African American family. They all live together in a little apartment, and they all have many struggles to face daily.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun and Dreamers
    • 630 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A Raisin in the Sun and Dreamers

    Dreamers: people who are guided more by ideals than practical considerations. Robin S. Sharma says, “Dreamers are mocked as impractical. The truth is they are the most practical, as their innovation lead to progress and a better way of life for all of us.” All “dreamers” have a belief in what they want to accomplish, because they have the vision of the result to keep them motivated.…

    • 630 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Through the Lens : Racism
    • 1406 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Through the Lens : Racism

    Even when everyone tries their best to be equal towards one another, people always end up being racist because of differences in ethnicities. This is shown all around the world in small and large countries especially the United States. The amount of diversity in the United States leads people to interact with others who might not necessarily be the same ethnicity as they are. This is portrayed in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, and other contemporary issues going on in the United States that racism is mainly caused by people thinking that their ethnicity is better than another person’s.…

    • 1406 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Write a review of a play from the perspective of a stagehand.
    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Write a review of a play from the perspective of a stagehand.

    It is the night of the first performance and everyone is nervous especially the stage hand because, it is my job to make sure that everything is in order. we have to keep everything in order and take the actors and actresses to their entrances when it is their queue. We as stagehands have to keep all the props organized and if one prop goes missing it is our fault. In all my years of experience, The Theater and Two River production of Macbeth was the most complicated play to produce. The usage of blood as a stage emblem is over exaggerated, but it is a good way to show the theme of guilt in this play. The original version of Macbeth was presented in the early 1600’s; our version of Macbeth is very similar. Our porter scene was a comic relief yet it was an intermission for the actors to get ready for the next act after all the intense and suspenseful scenes just before. The porter made the audience feel that they were inside the play because he involved them within it. In addition, the witches looked like mummies to reflect “Speak if you can. What are you?”(1.3.50) the curiosity and identity the witches look like they are from an evil realm, so we as stagehands made the witches look different and unearthly. In the first performance of “Macbeth” in the early 1600’s they used trap doors to reflect, the supernatural powers of the witches. We have drifted a bit off of the original, but in the end, it is the same exact play with Aaron Posner’s touch. Making the blood is the most difficult because we use so much of it that we easily run out, but that’s my job. Every director sees each play differently and I did not expect this performance to use this much blood because I’m the one who has to clean it all up. We have to run back and forth cleaning backstage from all the blood and getting it off the costumes. The blood contains red paint and a bit of detergents, just to make it easier for…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Textual Analysis Of Lady Macbeth
    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Textual Analysis Of Lady Macbeth

    In preparation of my script writing and performance, I encountered several challenges in understanding the original play script and spent a vast amount of time reinterpreting my script into my own words which will better suit the audience’s understanding. In finding a way to understand the text, I used a variety of online sources as well as books which greatly assisted me in rewriting the script.…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    100 Book Talk Ideas Essay Example
    • 3023 Words
    • 13 Pages

    100 Book Talk Ideas Essay Example

    With two or three other students, do a readers' theatre presentation or act out a…

    • 3023 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Raisin in the Sun Race Relations
    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Raisin in the Sun Race Relations

    As I read and studied the play A Raisin in the Sun, it really engaged me and exposed so…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Alexander Hamilton
    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Alexander Hamilton

    By having the students look at videos and hear the songs from the play, this will entice them to continue their research on the subject. Provide lyrics for the students to read along while the actors sing will enable them to obtain the information more since it will be done in a genre that they would probably like which will ultimately spark an interest in their learning process.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Raisin in the Sun
    • 1174 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Raisin in the Sun

    A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. It was the first Broadway play written by a black playwright. The title comes from the poem "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes. The play portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, an African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. The theme expresses the importance of dreams and how achieving those dreams can come with various obstacles and struggles. Hansberry uses many literary elements to convey this theme such as symbolism, diction, imagery, and structure.…

    • 1174 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    A Raisin in the Sun
    • 1664 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Raisin in the Sun

    A Raisin in the sun by Lorraine Hansberry thematically represents the life of the Younger family, the conflict of their dreams and their struggle to attain these dreams either for selfishness of the individual or because of family differences. Hughes symbolically represents the idea of dreams deferred in her poem and such is a direct resemblance to the different dreams of the characters, Mama, Beneatha, Walter Lee and Ruth and the effect that their dreams begin to have on the family and them as individuals. For the Younger family ‘bread is not enough’ and with the conflict surrounding their different dreams the family begins to crumble, pushing them close to the edge. This essay therefore sets out to discuss the individual dreams that each of them aspires to and how their actions to attain their dreams or lack of impact their life as a family and as individuals.…

    • 1664 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More