A Raisin in the Sun Trivia
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99 free A Raisin in the Sun trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959 with a cast and a story that the theatre had never made room for before, and it has been on school reading lists ever since. The Youngers are waiting on an insurance check in a cramped apartment, and everyone has a different idea of what a better life costs. These fifty questions follow the play from the first scene to the last, then out into the world: the original cast and what became of them, the 1961 film, the 1970s musical and the television versions, the Tony-winning revivals of the 2000s, and the plays other writers have built on top of it. A final strand covers Lorraine Hansberry herself, from the Chicago lawsuit her family fought to the friends and causes that shaped her short life. It suits anyone studying the play, running a literature quiz, or simply curious how much of the story they remember. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why does Mama pick a house in an all-white neighborhood over a Black one in A Raisin in the Sun?
It was much cheaper
It was much cheaper, a practical choice rather than a political one, and the white neighborhood's Improvement Association still sends a man round to buy the family out. Walter refuses the offer in the final scene.
Q 02What sum does the life-insurance check bring the Younger family after Big Walter's death in A Raisin in the Sun?
$10,000
$10,000 is the payout on Big Walter's life, and every Younger has a plan for it: Mama a house, Walter a liquor store, Beneatha her tuition. Only the house survives the play.
Q 03What job does Walter Lee Younger hold in A Raisin in the Sun while he dreams of buying into a liquor store?
Limousine driver
Limousine driver is the job Walter is barely living on, which is why a share in a liquor store with two street-smart acquaintances looks like salvation. Mama's religious objection to alcohol stands in the way.
Q 04What does Beneatha Younger plan to become in A Raisin in the Sun, the ambition Mama earmarks insurance money for?
A doctor
A doctor is what Beneatha means to be, and Asagai's marriage proposal comes with an invitation to practise medicine in his homeland. Her tuition vanishes when Walter's deal collapses.
Q 05Which partner in Walter's liquor-store deal in A Raisin in the Sun vanishes with the cash, leaving Bobo to tell him?
Willy Harris
Willy Harris skips town with the whole stake, and Beneatha's tuition goes with it because Walter never banked the share Mama told him to. Walter then nearly takes the buyout.
Q 06Which rich suitor of Beneatha's in A Raisin in the Sun embodies the 'fully assimilated black man' and mocks Walter?
George Murchison
George Murchison is the rich, educated boyfriend who denies his African heritage, and Beneatha finds his smarter-than-thou act disgusting. Asagai, the rival, teaches her that heritage instead.
Q 07Joseph Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun invites Beneatha to move with him to which country, alongside a marriage proposal?
Nigeria
Nigeria is Asagai's home, and the Yoruba student calls Beneatha's straightened hair 'mutilation' while teaching her about her African heritage. She agrees to consider going.
Q 08Who played Walter Lee Younger in the original Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun and in the 1961 film?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier jumped into the audience on opening night and pulled Hansberry onto the stage when the crowd cried out for the author. He had sent the script to its director a year earlier.
Q 09Who directed the 1959 Broadway premiere of A Raisin in the Sun, the first Black director of a Broadway play?
Lloyd Richards
Lloyd Richards later ran the Yale School of Drama for twelve years and brought August Wilson to Broadway with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in 1984. He and Hansberry rewrote the script weekly through 1958.
Q 10Which singer co-wrote 'To Be Young, Gifted and Black' in memory of her friend Lorraine Hansberry?
Nina Simone
Nina Simone introduced the song to 50,000 people at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and Hansberry had been godmother to Simone's daughter Lisa. The title came from a 1964 Hansberry speech.
Q 11In which all-white Chicago neighborhood does Mama put a down payment on a house in A Raisin in the Sun?
Clybourne Park
Clybourne Park's Improvement Association sends Karl Lindner round with an offer to buy the Youngers out, which the family rejects twice over. Walter finally turns the money down himself.
Q 12Which nosy neighbor, cut from A Raisin in the Sun's Broadway staging, jokes the Youngers will be bombed within a month?
Mrs. Johnson
Mrs. Johnson's scene stays in print because, as the published introduction says, it pulls the play away from a seemingly happy ending toward the violence Hansberry's own family met. The 2016 BBC radio version restored her.
Q 13Handing Walter the insurance money in A Raisin in the Sun, Mama tells him to become what?
Q 21Whose Lena in A Raisin in the Sun won the first Best Actress in a Play Tony for a Black actress?
Phylicia Rashad
Phylicia Rashad won for the 2004 Broadway revival, three decades after her younger sister Debbie Allen played Beneatha in the musical Raisin. Rashad reprised Lena in the 2008 TV film.
Q 22Who directed both the 2004 and 2014 Broadway revivals of A Raisin in the Sun, winning the 2014 Tony for direction?
Kenny Leon
Kenny Leon's 2014 staging took the Tony for Best Revival of a Play, and he also directed the 2008 television film, which premiered at Sundance. His 2004 cast reprised their roles in it.
Q 23Which British actress won a Tony for her Broadway debut as Ruth in the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun?
Head of the family
Head of the family is the role Mama gives him along with $6,500, asking only that he bank $3,000 for his sister's schooling. He hands the lot to a partner, who disappears with it.
Q 14In which part of Chicago do the five Youngers share a run-down apartment in A Raisin in the Sun?
South Side
South Side Chicago was Hansberry's own ground: her father bought a house in one of its white subdivisions, and the neighbors' lawsuit to force the family out went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Q 15Who originated Ruth Younger on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun and repeated the role in the 1961 film?
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film, while its two leads had to settle for Golden Globe nominations. She had started out with the American Negro Theatre.
Q 16Who created Lena Younger on Broadway and on film in A Raisin in the Sun, earning Tony and BAFTA nominations?
Claudia McNeil
Claudia McNeil nearly lost the part before opening: a would-be backer demanded Ethel Waters replace her, and producer Philip Rose walked away from his money. McNeil later said she no longer acted the role, she lived it.
Q 17Which actress played Beneatha in both the 1959 Broadway cast and the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun?
Diana Sands
Diana Sands went on to a Tony nomination opposite Alan Alda in The Owl and the Pussycat in 1964, and had been a high-school classmate of Diahann Carroll. She was twice nominated for an Emmy as well.
Q 18Which actor turned down the New York Knicks to join the 1959 Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun?
Louis Gossett Jr.
Louis Gossett Jr. made his film debut in the 1961 adaptation, two decades before his Oscar as the drill instructor in An Officer and a Gentleman. Broadway had already seen him in Take a Giant Step.
Q 19Which former husband of Hansberry co-wrote the book of Raisin, the 1973 musical version of A Raisin in the Sun?
Robert Nemiroff
Robert Nemiroff's share of the pop hit 'Cindy, Oh Cindy' had let Hansberry quit her day jobs to write full-time, and as her executor he completed Les Blancs and won a Tony for producing Raisin.
Q 20Which hip-hop mogul played Walter Lee in the 2004 Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun and its 2008 TV film?
Sean Combs
Sean Combs was in what The Hollywood Reporter called his first major movie role, and its critic judged that he 'holds his own' beside two co-stars who had won Tonys in the Broadway revival.
Sophie Okonedo
Sophie Okonedo beat her own co-star Anika Noni Rose, nominated in the same category for Beneatha, to the Featured Actress award. She returned to Broadway in The Crucible in 2016.
Q 24Which A Raisin in the Sun actor played Karl Lindner on Broadway, in the 1961 film and in the 1989 TV version?
John Fiedler
John Fiedler played the play's sole white role three times across thirty years, and Walt Disney cast him as Piglet after hearing his voice on television. He was Juror No. 2 in 12 Angry Men too.
Q 25Which actor, aged 12, played the Youngers' son Travis in the original 1959 Broadway cast of A Raisin in the Sun?
Glynn Turman
Glynn Turman went on to Cooley High in 1975 and Gremlins in 1984, then directed episodes of A Different World and The Wayans Bros. Each of the other three names played Travis in a later version.
Q 26Who directed the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun, taking a special Gary Cooper Award at Cannes for it?
Daniel Petrie
Daniel Petrie shot the film from Hansberry's own screenplay with the Broadway cast almost intact, and the Golden Globes nominated both of his leads.
Q 27In 2005 the 1961 film of A Raisin in the Sun was chosen for preservation in which American archive?
National Film Registry
National Film Registry status, conferred by the Library of Congress, went to a film that moved the play's Broadway company to the screen almost intact, working from Hansberry's own adaptation.
Q 28At which Broadway house did A Raisin in the Sun premiere in March 1959, before moving to the Belasco that October?
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Ethel Barrymore Theatre was also where the 2014 revival played, returning the Youngers to the stage of the premiere 55 years on. The original run closed in June 1960.
Q 29Which play, later an Oscar-winning film, beat A Raisin in the Sun to the 1960 Tony Award for Best Play?
The Miracle Worker
The Miracle Worker took Best Play and Best Direction, leaving Raisin winless from four nominations, though the New York Drama Critics' Circle had already named Hansberry's drama the best play of 1959.
Q 30Who played Walter Lee opposite Esther Rolle's Lena in the 1989 PBS American Playhouse film of A Raisin in the Sun?
Danny Glover
Danny Glover had already played the part on tour for the Roundabout Theatre's 25th-anniversary staging, which the PBS version was built on. Bill Duke directed it.