Damron Armstrong, Executive Director of the Black Repertory Theatre of KC on “A Raisin in the Sun”

Damron Russel Armstrong, Founder and Executive Director of the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City, joins us to share his recent experience directing Lorraine Hansberry’s classic drama “A Raisin in the Sun,” collaborating in a partnership production with The Lewis and Shirley White Theatre at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City (The J) and the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City (BRTKC). The show opened March 11, 2023, for a twelve regular performance run, plus student matinees, the final performance was March 26th.

“A Raisin in the Sun” takes its title from a Langston Hughes poem entitled “Harlem,” which poses the question “What happens to a dream deferred?”  First staged in 1959, Louise Hansberry’s play explores how The American Dream has been deferred for any entire segment of the population,, experienced by a Black multi-generational family, the Youngers. The audience follows the family’s internal and external struggles as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance pay-out following the death of the family patriarch.

Raisin in the Sun” won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play with Hansberry the youngest American and first African American playwright to win the award. The Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play was later adapted for the screen starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Louis Gossett Jr. and Claudia McNeill.

BRTKC s designed to impact the Kansas City Community by telling stories of the Black experience.

Donna Morrow Wolfe – host, producer, engineer

Karen E. Griffin – co-host, co-producer

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