Lorraine Hansberry believed that theatre serves a vital social function to motivate, mobilize, and lead us to imagine alternative possibilities, a new social order. Her living legacy challenges us as audience, artists, thinkers, and can-be activists. The challenge asks,” What is the purpose of art? How can art position us to act? What is the necessary give-back to the communities of which we are a part?”

In this public conversation with Hansberry Literary Executor Joi Gresham, Hansberry biographer Soyica Colbert (author of the forthcoming Lorraine Hansberry: Artist/Activist), and playwrights Talvin Wilks and Erika Dickerson-Despenza, we will explore the persistent resonance of Lorraine Hansberry’s signature work, A Raisin in the Sun, sixty years after its Broadway premiere. Each participant will speak to how the writer, artist, intellectual and activist has influenced their own creative works and identities as artists-activists.

FREE; RESERVATIONS REQUIRED; GENERAL ADMISSION