If the name Lorraine Hansberry sounds familiar, it’s probably because her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, was a surprise hit in 1959. It was the first show on Broadway by a Black woman; it featured Sidney Poitier and won four Tony Awards, including Best Play. Two years later, it became a highly praised film, featuring many of the Broadway cast. More recently, it had a 2004 Broadway revival. Hansberry was just 29 when she wrote this searing tale about the plight of African Americans in Chicago during a time of racial segregation.
Why, after Raisin’s success, didn’t Hansberry write more? She did write just one more play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which had a brief Broadway run in 1964. However, Hansberry died from pancreatic cancer just as that show ended its Broadway run in January 1965. Her second script was surely a work in progress; she continued to tinker with it during its three-month run. Characterized as a “dramatic comedy,” it touched on a startling array of political and social issues, but it lacked the tight focus that had made Raisin such a success.
Nevertheless, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window was the work of a brilliant playwright. It lingered in theatrical shadows until a Broadway revival in 2023. Cincinnati-based high school teacher and community theater director David Derringer saw that production. In a recent conversation with CityBeat, he recalled his experience.
“As soon as I walked out of the theater, I knew I had to bring this play to Cincinnati. I didn’t even know that Hansberry had written another play, let alone one that is chock full of such emotional depth, strong characters and themes that are still as relevant today as they were 60 years ago.”
Derringer applied to several community theaters to stage the play. Mariemont Players, a venerable company on Cincinnati’s east side, agreed to do it. “They entrusted me with the vision and scope of the production,” Derringer said. “Not many community theaters would have the courage to tackle this epic play. I’m glad Mariemont wasn’t afraid to do so!”
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is built around the tempestuous relationship between Sidney, a disenchanted Greenwich Village intellectual, and his free-spirited wife, Iris, an aspiring actress. They are surrounded by a diverse array of friends, bohemian and conservative. Sidney has become the publisher and editor of a left-wing paper. Persuaded to support the election of a controversial candidate, he’s the focus of turmoil among the play’s other characters. Their argumentative stew blends divergent opinions about morality, ethics, interracial relationships, drugs, rebellion, conformity, global responsibility and the fragility of love.
Derringer feels Hansberry ran out of time to refine her play. “Early drafts were simply too wordy and too long,” he mentions. It’s possible that, aware of her own mortality, she includes every issue that concerned her. Despite her all-encompassing approach, her genius at creating characters and pushing them at one another is evident throughout The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.
CityBeat’s conversation with Derringer included actors Chad Brinkman and Anna Hazard, who play the central characters. Brinkman especially appreciates Hansberry’s notes setting up scenes. “Even more poetic than the lines are the things she says around them — the stage directions, the descriptions, her little inputs here and there about who these characters are and the world that they come from. She writes so beautifully and so poetically about these people.”
The show appealed to Derringer because every role is meaningful. “There truly is no bit part,” he said. “Every character, whether in one scene or five, has a story to tell and a moment or two where Hansberry has allowed them to shine. From a story aspect, while it is a play about race, art, addiction, mental health, sex positivity and politics, at its root is a story about marriage and how the individuals that make up that marriage change and morph over time.”
As Sidney, Brinkman said, “He’s one of my favorite kinds of characters, one of those lovable screw-ups who, in his desire to be liked and deal with his own demons, ends up doing some good.”
Sidney and Iris constantly battle and make up. Hazard said Iris is “flawed in very relatable ways. We so often have an idea of what we want in life and will do whatever it takes to get there, only to realize that we might not have really wanted this thing in the first place. We meet Iris in the middle of her questioning about where she is, what she wants and what she is willing to do to get it — and whether or not she likes what she’s done to get where she is. If you’ve ever been a people-pleaser, even for a moment, you might find a kindred spirit in Iris.”
“These characters definitely know each other’s sore spots,” Hazard pointed out about Iris and Sidney. “I love finding the places where they are poking at something that isn’t comfortable, but then we see when the line is crossed. We’ve all been there in real life. That’s what makes Hansberry so incredible — the dialogue is something that everyone can directly relate to.” She added, “There is something so real about the interplay of comedy and drama … that translates to our lived experiences. Hansberry nails that so perfectly.”
“I hope audiences walk away with a reminder of how far we’ve come as a society and how far we still have to go, and that that change begins with us,” Derringer says. “To quote Sidney, ‘In order to do things, you have to do things.’” That’s certainly the message Lorraine Hansberry intended to convey in her thoughtful, entertaining play.
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, presented by Mariemont Players at its Walton Creek Theater, runs from July 10-27. More info: mariemontplayers.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s July 9 print edition.
This article appears in Jul 9-22, 2025.