Clybourne Park

Presented by the Henderson Rec Players

Thursday, Aug. 9 at 8 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 10 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 11 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 12 at 2 p.m.

Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for Best Play, Clybourne Park is a satire about the politics of race that will be directed by Stephanie Asabi Howard.

In response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Bruce Norris set up his work as a pair of scenes that bookend Hansberry’s piece and are set in the same modest bungalow on Chicago’s northwest side. In 1959, Russ and Bev move out to the suburbs after the tragic death of their son. Inadvertently, they sell their house to the neighborhood’s first black family.

Fifty years later in 2009, the roles are reversed when a young white couple buys the lot in what is now a predominantly black neighborhood, signaling a new wave of gentrification. In both instances, a community showdown takes place, pitting race against real estate with this home as the battleground.