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A Raisin In The Sun (2008 Film)
''A Raisin in the Sun'' is a 2008 American period drama television film directed by Kenny Leon and starring Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. The teleplay by Paris Qualles is based on the award-winning 1959 play of the same name by Lorraine Hansberry and is the third film adaptation of that play, following the 1961 film that starred Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Diana Sands, and the 1989 TV version on PBS' ''American Playhouse'' starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle. ''A Raisin in the Sun'' debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast by ABC on February 25, 2008. According to Nielsen Media Research, the program was watched by 12.8 million viewers and ranked #9 in the ratings for the week ending March 2, 2008. Plot In 1959 Chicago, the Younger family is expecting a life insurance check of $10,000 after the death of Walter Lee’s father. Walter Lee, an impoverished limousine driver, wants to invest the money in a li ...
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A Raisin In The Sun
''A Raisin in the Sun'' is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of their father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as ''The Independent'' and '' Time Out'' have listed it among the best plays ever written. Plot Walter and Ruth Younger, and their son Travis, along with Walter's mother Lena (Mama) and younger sister Beneatha, live in poverty in a run-down two-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Side. Walter is barely making a living as a limousine driver. Though Ruth is content with their lot, Walter desperately wishes for more. He hopes to invest i ...
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Bad Boy Records
Bad Boy Entertainment, doing business as Bad Boy Records, is an American independent record label. The label was founded in 1993 by rapper and record producer Sean Combs. During the mid-1990s, the label signed hip-hop and contemporary R&B, R&B artists, beginning with the Notorious B.I.G. Following his commercial success, the label signed other acts, including Faith Evans, Mase, 112 (band), 112, Total (group), Total, The Lox, Shyne and Carl Thomas (singer), Carl Thomas. At its 1997 peak, Bad Boy was worth an estimated US$100 million. During the 2000s, the label signed artists including French Montana, Machine Gun Kelly (musician), Machine Gun Kelly, Janelle Monáe, and Cassie Ventura. In 2023, Combs created a successor label, Love Records, to independently release his fifth studio album, ''The Love Album: Off the Grid''. History Beginnings After his climb from a non-paid internship to becoming an A&R executive at Uptown Records, Uptown, Sean "Puffy" Combs was fired in 1993 by A ...
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Esther Rolle
Esther Elizabeth Rolle (November 8, 1920 – November 17, 1998) was an American actress. She is best known for her role as Florida Evans, on the CBS television sitcom '' Maude,'' for two seasons (1972–1974), and its spin-off series '' Good Times'', for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1976. In 1979, Rolle won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Special for the television film '' Summer of My German Soldier''. Early life Esther Rolle was born on November 8, 1920, in Pompano Beach, Florida to Bahamian immigrants Jonathan Rolle (1883–1953), a farmer, and Elizabeth Iris Rolle (née Dames; 1887–1947). Her parents were both born and raised in Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas and moved to Florida some time after their marriage. She was the tenth of 18 children (children who included siblings and fellow actresses Estelle Evans and Rosanna Carter). Rolle attended ...
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Danny Glover
Danny Glover ( ; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, producer, and political activist. Over his career he has received List of awards and nominations received by Danny Glover, numerous accolades including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the NAACP's NAACP Image Award – President's Award, President's Award, as well as nominations for five Emmy Awards and four Grammy Awards. Glover made his film acting debut in ''Escape from Alcatraz (film), Escape from Alcatraz'' in 1979. He rose to fame in the late 1980s for playing Roger Murtaugh in the ''Lethal Weapon (franchise), Lethal Weapon'' film series. Glover's other notable films include ''Places in the Heart'' (1984), ''The Color Purple (1985 film), The Color Purple'' (1985), ''Witness (1985 film), Witness'' (1985), ''To Sleep with Anger'' (1990), ''Grand Canyon (1991 film), Grand Canyon'' (1991), ''Bopha!'' (1993), ''Angels in the Outfield (1994 film), Angels in the O ...
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American Playhouse
''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever and directed by Paul Bogart. Its final broadcast, ''In the Wings: Angels in America on Broadway'', a rerun of a behind-the-scenes look at Tony Kushner's award-winning play in two parts, aired on January 1, 1994. The series proved to be a springboard for the careers of numerous performers, including David Marshall Grant, Laura Linney, A Martinez, Conchata Ferrell, Eric Roberts, Lynne Thigpen, John Malkovich, Peter Riegert, Lupe Ontiveros, Ben Stiller, and Megan Mullally. As part of WGBH's development of the Descriptive Video Service (DVS), ''American Playhouse'' was one of the first U.S. television programs to air with audio description for the visually impaired on the Secondary audio program (SAP). After trialing the system during p ...
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Diana Sands
Diana Patricia Sands (August 22, 1934September 21, 1973) was an American actress, perhaps most known for her portrayal of Beneatha Younger, the sister of Sidney Poitier's character, Walter, in the original stage and film versions of Lorraine Hansberry's ''A Raisin in the Sun'' (1959). Sands also appeared in a number of dramatic television series in the 1960s and 1970s such as Dr. Julia Harrison in the 1964 ''The Outer Limits (1963 TV series), Outer Limits'' episode "The Mice (The Outer Limits), The Mice", the 1965-1968 series ''I Spy (1965 TV series), I Spy'', as Davala Unawa in the 1967 ''The Fugitive (1963 TV series), The Fugitive'' episode "Dossier on a Diplomat", and the 1968 series ''Julia (1968 TV series), Julia''. Sands also starred in the 1963 film ''An Affair of the Skin'' as the narrator and photographer, Janice. She was twice nominated for a Tony Award and twice nominated for an Emmy Award. Biography Early life and education Diana Patricia Sands was born one of three ...
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Claudia McNeil
Claudia Mae McNeil (August 13, 1917 – November 25, 1993) was an American actress known for premiering the role of matriarch Lena Younger in both the stage and screen productions of ''A Raisin in the Sun''. She later appeared in a 1981 production of the musical version of the play, ''Raisin'' presented by Equity Library Theater. She was twice nominated for a Tony Award, first for her onstage performance in ''A Raisin in the Sun'' (1959), and again for the play '' Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright'' in 1962. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for the screen version of ''A Raisin in the Sun'' in 1961. Life and career McNeil was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Marvin Spencer McNeil, who was black, and Annie Mae (Anderson) McNeil, an Apache woman. The family moved to New York City soon after her birth. She was raised by her mother after her father left the family. At the age of 12, McNeil began working for The Heckscher Foundation for Children. There she ...
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Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee (born Ruby Ann Wallace; October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress. She was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. She received numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk Award, as well as a nomination for an Academy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1995, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2000, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. Dee started her career with the American Negro Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in '' South Pacific'' (1943). She met her future husband working together on the play '' Jeb'' (1946). She originated the Broadway roles of Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's '' A Raisin in the Sun'' (1959) and reprised the role in the 1961 film and Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins in the Ossie Davis play '' Purlie Victorious'' (1961) and reprised the role in the 1963 film. She made her film debut in '' T ...
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Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier ( ; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Among his other accolades are two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA Award and a Grammy Awards, Grammy Award, in addition to nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Tony Awards, Tony Award. In 1999, he was ranked among the "AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, American Film Institute's 100 Stars". Poitier was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Poitier's family lived in the Bahamas, then still a Crown colony, but he was born in Miami, Florida, while they were visiting, which granted him U.S. citizenship. He grew up in the Bahamas, but moved to Miami at age 15, and to New York City when he was 16. He joined the American Negro Theatre, gaining his breakthrough film role as a high school student in t ...
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Screenplay
A screenplay, or script, is a written work produced for a film, television show (also known as a '' teleplay''), or video game by screenwriters (cf. ''stage play''). Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. A screenplay is a form of narration in which the movements, actions, expressions and dialogue of the characters are described in a certain format. Visual or cinematographic cues may be given, as well as scene descriptions and scene changes. History In the early silent era, before the turn of the 20th century, "scripts" for films in the United States were usually a synopsis of a film of around one paragraph and sometimes as short as one sentence.Andrew Kenneth Gay"History of scripting and the screenplay"at Screenplayology: An Online Center for Screenplay Studies. Retrieved 15 December 2021. Shortly thereafter, as films grew in length and complexity, film scenarios (also called "treatments" or "synopses"Steven Maras. ''Screenwri ...
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Drama (film And Television)
In film and television show, television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or docudrama, semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humour, humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera, police procedural, police crime drama, political drama, legal drama, historical drama, domestic drama, Drama (film and television)#Teen drama, teen drama, and comedy drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular Setting (narrative), setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage a broader range of Mood (literature), moods. To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of Conflict (process), conflict—emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of Film industry, cinema or television that involve Fiction, fiction ...
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Period Film
A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction such as artistic license, creative dialogue or scenes which compress separate events. The biographical film is a type of historical drama which generally focuses on a single individual or well-defined group. Historical dramas can include romance film, romances, adventure films, and swashbucklers. Historical drama can be differentiated from historical fiction, which generally present fictional characters and events against a backdrop of historical events. A period piece may be set in a vague or general era such as the Middle Ages, or a specific period such as the Roaring Twenties, or the recent past. Scholarship In different eras different subgenres have risen to popularity, such as the westerns and sword and sandal films that dominated Nor ...
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