Raisin (musical)
musical by Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan
Raisin is a musical with music by Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Brittan, and a book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. It is an adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun; the musical's book was co-written by Hansberry's husband, Robert Nemiroff. Ernestine Jackson participated also in the Raisin musical in 1973, she originated the role of Ruth Younger.
The story concerns an African-American family in Chicago in 1951. The musical was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning two, including Best Musical, and the Broadway production ran for 847 performances.
Synopsis
In Chicago in 1951, an African-American family – Ruth Younger, her husband Walter Lee Younger, their son Travis, and Walter's mother Mama Lena – are living in a cramped apartment. Walter is a chauffeur but thinks that his father's life insurance policy proceeds will buy a way to a better life. He plans on buying a liquor store, but his mother is against the selling of liquor. Tensions arise as Walter tries to convince Mama Lena to forget her dream of buying the family its own small house ("A Whole Lotta Sunlight").
Walter decides to make the deal for the liquor store and signs the papers with his partners Bobo Jones and Willie Harris.
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This entry incorporates text from “Raisin (musical)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.