TVSquad

A Raisin in the Sun, the famous play by Lorraine Hansberry, is being adapted as a three-hour ABC TV movie starring and executive produced by Sean Combs, who has reunited the recent Broadway cast. The movie will also feature Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, John Stamos and Sanaa Lathan (Stamos spoke with our own Joel Keller about it here). Hansberry's play, which was the first written by an African-American to be produced on Broadway, centers on a black family in Chicago who anxiously await an inheritance of ten thousand dollars. The cast have all appeared in the Broadway version, which garnered Tonys for Rashad, McDonald and (a nomination for) Lathan. The TV movie is being executed produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago) along with Combs. The movie will debut on ABC sometime in 2007.

A Raisin in the Sun was also made into a movie in 1961, featuring the original Broadway cast.