'Raisin' a groundbreaking moment for Harper theater

As a theater major and African-American actress, Tekolya Brown says there was one show she especially wanted on her resume: "A Raisin in the Sun."

"I've never done that show," the Mount Prospect actress said, "and I wanted that experience."

Thanks to the Harper College production opening at 8 p.m. Friday, she gets her chance.

Brown plays the role of the young, pregnant wife, Ruth Younger, originally played in the 1959 Broadway version by Ruby Dee. She plays opposite Roger Price of Broadview, in the role created by Sidney Poitier of Walter Lee Younger Jr.

Together they headline a cast of nearly all African-American actors in a show Harper officials are describing as "groundbreaking."

Other principals include Bianca Hrobowski of Roselle, and Tashika Coleman of Streamwood. Cast members are George Murchison and Jason Pereira of Schaumburg; Joe Serio and Enrique Cortez of Rolling Meadows; Shobe Khan of Hoffman Estates; A. Monnie Aleahmand and Nick Foster of Carpentersville; and Kyle Smith of South Holland.

Director Laura Pulio Colbert, a professor in the Speech and Theatre Department, won a Multicultural Faculty Fellowship at Harper to produce plays with a diverse viewpoint. Colbert already explores multicultural issues in her classroom - she has two adopted Guatemalan children - but looked for ways to heighten awareness across campus, and the community.

"I thought, 'Let's give this some thought and see how we can take this a step further,'" Colbert says.

"A Raisin in the Sun" written by Lorraine Hansberry, was considered groundbreaking right from the start as it was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.

The play would go on to earn four Tony awards, and draw mainstream audiences on Broadway and to movie theaters for the 1961 film version.

Set on the South side of Chicago, the play revolves around the Younger family living in a tiny tenement apartment. The catalyst in the plot is the arrival of a $10,000 insurance check, which elicits the different ways family members dream of a better life.

Brown concedes that after her first reading of the script she had trouble interpreting her character.

"She seems to have all of the family's struggles on her shoulders," Brown says. "She does all the cleaning and the cooking, and she's the one who listens to everyone's problems, but it seems she has no one she can turn to.

"She's a quiet person, but she has a fire beneath her," Brown adds, "and she doesn't know how to get it out."

The play's impact, Brown says, comes in seeing how the various family members work through everything from racism to their competing ambitions and problems, by coming together as a family, which is ultimately how she chose to play Ruth's character.

"I've drawn from my own family members, including my mother and my aunts in playing her," says Brown, who grew up in Kankakee. "I really want to show her quiet strength."

If you go

What: "A Raisin in the Sun"

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 14-15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16; continues 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 21-22, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23.

Where: Harper College's Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Algonquin Road in Palatine

Cost: $15 general admission, with discounts for Harper students, faculty, staff and seniors

Call: (847) 925-6100 or visit www.harpercollege.edu