ABSTRACT
Visions on the American Stage attempts to reveal the wide range and complexity of a critically neglected group of playwrights. Apart from Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote insightful but seldom confrontational plays about African American life from a female perspective, few African American women are well known as contributors to the stage. A frequently overlooked at best marginalized group of playwrights in American theater world have been African American women. Typically, when we think of African American playwrights, Lorraine Hansberry, the first African American playwright to win New York Drama Critics Award, comes to mind because of her spectacular success with A Raisin in the Sun was the first African American play ever to be produced on Broadway. A Raisin in the Sun is a comfortable family play with which all of America could identify for in addition to its racial themes, the play also raises such issues as housing, roles of women, marriage, child rearing, abortion, money and employment.
