On Monday, May 19, Out-FM, the LGBT program on noncommercial Pacifica radio station WBAI, 99.5 FM, will present “The Life and Work of Lorraine Hansberry." The three-hour special will include excerpts from "Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words," a 1967 radio drama aired on WBAI and Los Angeles Pacifica station KPFK. The drama was the prototype for the play, "Young, Gifted and Black," and helped it gain the attention it needed to get booked on Broadway. In addition, biographer Margaret Wilkerson, Professor Emerita of African American Studies at the University of California/Berkeley, will discuss Hanberry's significance to the debates surrounding the Civil Rights Movement, and an often overlooked part of her life: her lesbianism, her affiliation with the Daughters of Bilitis, an early lesbian rights organization, and her letters to the organization's magazine. Wilkerson has discovered previously unpublished writings of Hansberry that deal with lesbian topics.

The 1967 drama was a personal and literary biography with performances of parts of Hansberry's plays, letters, and other writings. “This amazing program wove her politics and her art together in an uplifting way,” said Nancy Kirton, one of the Out-FM producers. Sixty-one Broadway and Hollywood stars -- many of them internationally renowned -- took part in the production, which was narrated by actor Ossie Davis and actor-director Harold Scott. Actors range from Ruby Dee to Sidney Poitier, from Betty Davis to Paul Newman. Part of the work was rediscovered last year in the Pacifica Radio Archive and saved for posterity in pristine condition by digitization. The Los Angeles-based Archive contains thousands of hours of broadcasts from the 59-year-old non-profit social justice radio network, including the voices of James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, and many others. “We're lucky the Archive was able to save this recording, Kirton said. “The Archive has been diligently working to save these recordings from oblivion by digitizing them, since many will deteriorate if not digitized soon.”

Hansberry was a renowned African American playwright best known for her hit Broadway play and later Hollywood movie, “A Raisin in the Sun.” In 1959, at age 28, she was the youngest playwright and first Black person to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the Year, which propelled her into the media spotlight. Her work reflected the struggles for civil rights and Black liberation in the U.S. at the time.

Hansberry was also known for her later plays “Les Blancs,” “The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window,” “The Drinking Gourd,” “The Movement,” and “What Use are Flowers?” According to Out-FM producer John Riley, “Lorraine Hansberry was able to project her strong leftist and feminist views through her work in a non-preachy way, using deep characterization and fascinating plots.”

Hansberry died in 1965 at the age of 35 of cancer. She was born on May 19, 1930, and would have been 78 on the day of the upcoming broadcast.

The special program will be part of WBAI's Spring Membership Drive, with the 1967 production available in a 6-CD set as a premium. The program's producers include Out-FM's Nancy Kirton, John Riley, and Brad Taylor. Out-FM is a progressive LGBT news, culture and activist hour that airs weekly on Mondays at 11:00 AM. It is broadcast on WBAI/NY 99.5FM and the Internet at www.wbai.org, with archives available at the same website after each show. A list of actors in “Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words,” follows:

The following is a list of the actors participating in the production (transcribed from the credits at the end of the CD)


Bena Lisa
Anne Bancroft
Lauren Bacall
Ralph Bellamy
Hershel Bernardi
Theodore Bikel
Claire Bloom
Roscoe Lee Browne
Morris Carnovsky
Howard Chamberlain
Godfrey Cambridge
Lee J. Cobb
Howard DaSilva
Bette Davis
Ossie Davis
Ruby Dee
Gabriel Dell
Colleen Dewhurst
Melvin Douglas
Alvin Epstein
Frances Foster
Gloria Foster
Al Freeman, Jr.
Will Geer
Alice Ghostley
Jack Gilford
Louis Gossett
Julie Harris
Rosemary Harris
Uta Hagen
June Haver
John Heffernan
James Earl Jones
Anne Jackson
Angela Lansbury
Theodore Lakell
Rosetta LeNoire
E.G. Marshall
Elaine May
Claudia McNeil
Rita Moreno
Rosemary Murphy
Paul Newman
Sir Laurence Olivier
Geraldine Page
Shawneal Perry
Sidney Poitier
Leslie Rivers
Paul Robeson
Diana Sands
Harold Scott
Madeline Sherwood
Louis Stubbs
Diana Sands
Harold Sands
Maureen Stapleton
Rod Steiger
Louise Stubbs
Barbara Ann Teer
Rip Torn
Cicely Tyson
Douglas Turner Ward
Eli Wallach
Joanne Woodward
Teresa Wright


Script material selection and direction by Robert Nemiroff (Hansberry's ex-husband)
Engineering and tape editing by Sid Presberg & Ed Walker
Editorial assistance Charlotte Saltzberg & Willie Northrop
All artists participated with cooperation of AFTRA
“Raisin in the Sun” and ”The Sign in Sidney Burstein's Window” are plays published by
Random House and New American Library.
Production recorded and produced by Ted Rubin
Broadcast 1967 on WBAI and KPFK
Lorraine Hansberry died on Jan. 12, 1965.

Date: Monday, May 19, 2008

Time: 11am-2pm