To Be Young, Gifted and Black: The World of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969)

• 84%
• 1969
• Gene Frankel
• Rita Gardner
• Bruce Hall
• Gertrude Jeannette

This show features excerpts of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," a dramatic profile of playwright Lorraine Hansberry as adapted for the Cherry Lane Theater in New York. In this drama, actors perform multiple roles and use Hansberry's words to convey her life and works. The program begins with monologue taken from Hansberry's speech at the Broadway opening of her play "A Raisin In the Sun," conveying her optimism that humans will someday master their fates, in spite of the widespread suffering she has witnessed. Other highlights include the following: an excerpt from Hansberry's play "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window"; a dialogue concerning the abstract style of drama that is currently popular; a reading of a letter from 1962 addressed to a young man who wrote to ask Hansberry about "the Negro question" and possible solutions; and "Conversation With An Uncolored Egghead," in which Hansberry has a heated argument with a white man at a cocktail party about the African-American heritage and class differences between black people. The program concludes with an excerpt of a 1964 diary entry, in which Hansberry reflects on life and anticipates her death, and with Hansberry's address to the United Negro College Fund writing-contest winners urging them to achieve and to share their particular gifts with the world.