Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Khanisha Foster ’02, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Acting, directs a new production of Lorraine Hansberry‘s classic American drama A Raisin in the Sun for South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California. The play runs October 22 through November 12 at SCR’s Julianne Argyros Stage, located at the Emmes/Benson Theatre Center, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. For tickets, click here.

As previously reported in this blog, Khanisha Foster – a freelance actor and director – was recently named Director of Equity, Belonging, and Engagement at the Center Theatre Group arts organization, located in Los Angeles, California. Foster also recently moderated a Zoom panel on “Intimacy for Stage and Screen“ with several Columbia College Theatre alums and former teachers, including Tony Award-winning director David Cromer HDR ’17.

The show’s creative team also includes former Columbia College Theatre Department student Sasha Smith, who is the production’s Intimacy & Fight Consultant.

The production is part of SCR’s American Icon Series, which celebrates “the artists, personalities and opinion leaders who boldly changed our world,” according to a statement on SCR’s website. Chicago-born playwright Lorraine Hansberry certainly fits the description: her 1959 drama A Raisin in the Sun made her the first African American female writer to have a play performed on Broadway. With a stellar cast headed by Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett, Ivan Dixon, and Glynn Turman, Raisin was a Broadway hit in its original run, and has been revived on Broadway twice, in 2004 and 2014. Original Broadway cast members Poitier, McNeil, Dee, Sands, Gossett, and Dixon also starred in a 1961 film version, and there have been two made-for-TV film versions as well. An off-Broadway production in 2022 starred Columbia College alum Tonya Pinkins ’96.