"A Raisin in the Sun" and Filming in Chicago
- Chicago Movie Tours
- Jan 7, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Sadly, the location filming in Chicago of the 1961 movie A Raisin in the Sun echoed the racism in the play.
When I started teaching general literature courses in graduate school, I often assigned Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun as an example of contemporary American drama.
The 1959 play was the first Broadway production penned by a Black woman and the first with a Black director, Lloyd Richards.
A Raisin in the Sun always went over well with my Texas students—as did clips from its 1961 film adaptation, co-starring Sidney Poitier, who died today at age 94.
At the time, I had no idea I'd one day live near this movie's locations and then dive into its poignant production history.
Chicago Filming Locations
In the summer of 1960, the cast and crew of A Raisin in the Sun began filming on location in four areas of Chicago:
University of Chicago
Michigan Ave.
Kitty Kat Club (a gay nightclub on 611 E. 63rd)
4930 W. Hirsch St., featured below
Situated northwest of Chicago's South Loop, this house on W. Hirsch St. serves as a major plot point in A Raisin in the Sun.
To recap:
The Younger family receives a life insurance check for $10,000 after the death of the father. The matriarch uses part of this money for a down payment on a new house. Instead of resettling her family in a Black neighborhood, she opts for an all-white one. The property there, after all, is cheaper.
But, as you might imagine in 1950s America, the Younger family quickly runs into a roadblock. The neighborhood's white residents are vehemently opposed to an interracial population.
A "Black Movie" on Our Street?
According to the Black newspaper The Chicago Defender and contemporary industry reports, the Chicago location filming of A Raisin in the Sun eerily echoed the play's narrative.
During an exterior shoot at a West Side Chicago home, "neighbors in the block began registering objections to the jam of sepians [Black people] on scene, while others protested because they thought the neighborhood was being invaded by sepians" (Oct. 15, 1960).
More specifically, one neighbor contacted the homeowner, scared "they were selling their house to 'Negroes.'”
The house in question—4930 W. Hirsch Street (see above)—belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Casaccio, a middle-class Italian family with two sons.
The Casaccio's neighbors, as the book Chicago Whispers describes, clearly did not want "a 'Black' movie on their street." As a result, cast and crew were reportedly "forced out of the neighborhood"—an ordeal that imitated the real-life Chicago experiences that inspired Hansberry's play.
Production also apparently faced bigotry when the University of Chicago stipulated the movie could shoot on school grounds only "if the institution’s name was not used."
Kitty Kat Club: Hollywood's Choice
On a more positive note...
A Raisin in the Sun also filmed scenes at Chicago's Kitty Kat Club, a gay nightclub located at 611 E. 63rd. No longer in existence, the club was once known as "a haven for gay South Siders and its on-the-pulse music programs."
Hoping its ties to the 1961 movie might increase business, the Kitty Kat Club owners promoted their establishment alongside the film.
The gay nightclub took out ads in The Chicago Defender reading:
"Hollywood's Choice, Make It Yours"
"Where Scenes from A Raisin in the Sun Were Filmed"
(I haven't looked at data, but I'm guessing attendance went up at the Kitty Kat Club in the early 1960s?!)
RIP, Sidney Poitier, and thank you for your stellar body of work, even amidst seemingly insurmountable odds.
Correction: an earlier version of this post inadvertently cited the Casaccio family as participants in the neighborhood protests when, in fact, they owned the house that is shown in the film.
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