The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window Audiobook By Lorraine Hansberry cover art

The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window

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The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window

By: Lorraine Hansberry
Narrated by: Oscar Isaac, Rachel Brosnahan, Gus Birney, Julian De Niro, Glenn Fitzgerald, Andy Grotelueschen, Miriam Silverman, Raphael Nash Thompson
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Fresh off the success of her groundbreaking first play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window tells the tragicomic story of a young bohemian couple in New York's Greenwich Village, struggling to do what's right in a world that rewards everything that's wrong. Sidney is a dreamer who wants his own Walden Pond; Iris is a budding actress whose own backstory is a performance. They're caught in a moment where, "the world is about to crack right down the middle," as the play deftly tackles racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, liberal complacency, and more. A 2023 Tony Award Nominee for Best Revival, Rachel Brosnahan and Oscar Isaac lead a stellar cast, bringing wit and humor to characters and issues that are as relevant today as they were in the turbulent 1960s.

©1964 Lorraine Hansberry (P)2024 AO Media, LLC Drama & Plays Entertainment & Performing Arts Theater Heartfelt Witty United States World Literature

Dear Listener,

Lorraine Hansberry brought her first play to the Broadway stage in 1959. Many consider A Raisin in the Sun a masterpiece of mid-20th-century cultural life and expression. This framed a new consciousness in the representation of Black lives on the stage and inspired multiple new meanings of America dreamin’.
Her second Broadway play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, takes us into a new space—inside the lives of young white intellectuals in 1960s Greenwich Village. It is a call for activism and insurgency. It is a political play of ideas and it was an uncommon and new thing for Broadway audiences in 1964.
This 2023 Broadway revival celebrates the 6oth anniversary of the original production. The current script restores original material and has been edited by the Hansberry Literary Trustee, Joi Gresham."– Joi Gresham, Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust (LHLT)
Lorraine Hansberry
Anne Kauffman
About the Performer - Lorraine Hansberry

About the creator

Lorraine Hansberry (playwright) was a Black activist, artist, public intellectual, and writer. In 1959 she became the youngest American playwright and the only African American to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, for A Raisin in the Sun. In 1965 she died of cancer. She was 34. To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, an autobiographical portrait adapted by her former husband and literary executor Robert Nemiroff, was produced in 1969. Hansberry’s writings also include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, What Use Are Flowers?, and The Movement. The Lorraine Hansberry Papers are located at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. www.lhlt.org

About the director - Anne Kauffman

About the director

Anne Kauffman (Director). New York Philharmonic, BAM, Ars Nova, NYTW, Roundabout Theatre Company, Encores! Off-Center, Women’s Project, Playwrights Horizons, MCC, The Public, P73 Productions, New Georges, Vineyard Theater, LCT3, Yale Rep, Steppenwolf, Goodman Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Z Space, American Conservatory Theater and Berkeley Rep. She is a resident director at Roundabout Theater, artistic associate and founding member of The Civilians, a Clubbed Thumb associate artist and co-creator of the CT Directing Fellowship, a New Georges associate artist, an SDC executive board member, vice president and trustee of SDCF 2020-2023 and artistic director of City Center’s Encores! Off-Center 2017-2020. Kauffman’s awards include 2023 Tony nomination for Best Revival for The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, three Obies, the Joan and Joseph Cullman Award for Exceptional Creativity from Lincoln Center, the Alan Schneider Director Award, a Lucille Lortel Award, a Drama League Award and the Joe A. Callaway. Co-creator of the Cast Album Project with Jeanine Tesori.

Rachel Brosnahan
Oscar Isaac
About the Performer- Rachel Brosnahan

About the Performer

Rachel Brosnahan will star as the iconic “Lois Lane” in James Gunn's Superman. The worldwide release date is July 11, 2025. She also stars opposite Academy Award winner Rami Malek in the 20th Century feature The Amateur, directed by James Hawes, set to release worldwide April 11, 2025.
Last year, Rachel co-produced and starred opposite Oscar Isaac in the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry's seminal The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. The Broadway production followed a sold-out run at BAM.
Rachel starred as Miriam “Midge” Maisel in Amazon Prime’s critically acclaimed, global hit Series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She has won an Emmy, two Golden Globes, a Critics Choice, and a SAG Award for her performance.
She founded the production company Scrap Paper Pictures, where she oversees a robust slate of upcoming projects in film, television, audio, and theatre with a focus on character-driven stories that expand the world we recognize on screen and stage. She starred in and produced Julia Hart's Amazon Prime feature I'm Your Woman. She developed and produced two installments of the award-nominated Amazon Prime Comedy Special Yearly Departed. For Audible, she produced and stars in the scripted Original Podcast The Miranda Obsession opposite Milo Ventimiglia and Josh Groban. Rachel will also star in and produce the feature film adaption of The Switch, based on the bestselling novel by Beth O'Leary.
Additional film/series credits include Dead for a Dollar (Dir: Walter Hill), The Courier (Dir: Dominic Cooke), Patriots Day (Dir: Peter Berg), The Finest Hours (Dir: Craig Gillespie), Louder Than Bombs (Dir: Joachim Trier), Beautiful Creatures (Dir: Richard LaGravenese), House of Cards (Netflix, Emmy nomination), Manhattan (WGN), Olive Kitteridge (HBO).

About the Performer- Oscar Isaac

About the Performer

Oscar Isaac is an award-winning actor, producer, and musician whose enthralling performances have earned him both a devoted fan base and critical acclaim.
His more recent projects include his leading role in Hagai Levi’s HBO adaptation of Scenes from a Marriage (2021), which earned him an Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG nomination. He also recently voiced the character of Miguel O’Hara in the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Isaac’s other notable accolades include a Golden Globe win and Critics Choice Award for his role in the HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero. And in 2014, he snagged an Independent Spirit Award and Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Llewyn Davis in the titular Coen Brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis.
Over the years, Isaac has appeared in countless critically acclaimed films such as A Most Violent Year (2014), Ex Machina (2015), The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (2015-2019), The Promise (2016), Operation Finale (2018), Triple Frontier (2019), At Eternity’s Gate (2019), The Card Counter (2021), Dune (2021), and Moon Knight (2022), showing his ability to captivate audiences and ability to embody a range of characters.
With showing no signs of stopping, Isaac will star in Guillermo Del Toro’s highly anticipated Netflix adaptation of Frankenstein as Victor Frankenstein alongside Christoph Waltz, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth and is set to voice Jesus Christ in faith-based animated movie The King of Kings from Mofac Animation, alongside the likes of Forest Whitaker, Kenneth Branagh, and Uma Thurman.
In addition to film and television, Isaac is an alumnus of The Juilliard School and has a prolific history with theater. Most recently, in February of 2023, Isaac took to the stage alongside Rachel Brosnahan in the major revival of Lorraine Hanberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, directed by Anne Kauffman at the BAM Harvey Theater. In 2017, Isaac headlined The Public Theater’s summer production of Hamlet with Sam Gold at the helm. He has also appeared in productions of Zoe Kazan’s We Live Here at Manhattan Theatre Club, including his role as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. Moreover, he starred as Proteus in Two Gentlemen of Verona in productions for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. Additional theater credits include Beauty of the Father (Manhattan Theatre Club), Grace (MCC Theater), When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba (Cherry Lane Theatre), and Spinning into Butter (Hangar Theatre).
In 2019, alongside writer and director Elvira Lind, Isaac created his production banner Mad Gene Media. The first project under their banner, The Letter Room, was a short film written and directed by Lind and starring Isaac and received a nomination at the 2021 Academy Awards. Isaac will next produce and star in crime thriller In The Hand of Dante, directed by Oscar-nominated Julian Schnabel and executive produced by Martin Scorsese, in addition to producing and acting alongside Kristen Stewart in Flesh of the Gods from director Panos Cosmatos.

The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window - Featuring
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I thought the actors were excellent. I just confused by the end and what happened. Maybe I wasn’t paying close attention but the big climate of the story was not clear to me. I loved the music in this production. So so good. I would have liked more .

Great acting

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The back and forth between the actors is amazing. Loved Oscar Isaac’s performance. I know a lot of people didn’t like bc it’s a play turned audio book. I’ve listened to a lot of this style from BBC and I thought it was still good. The story is a hard one to follow at first but I think it has some great messages and is snapshot of that time period. It’s not long enough for anyone to be so upset about having listened to it!

Enjoyed Overall!

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This sort of play was the reason why I first fell in love with stories on stage, and soon after with audio plays.

Lorraine Hansberry’s language and dialogs are simply beautiful and reflective of her time and influences, and her characters unfold in a way that reminds me of other great American playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill.

Oscar Isaac, Rachel Brosnahan and supporting cast do not disappoint in their performance, and the production feels as though the I’m listening to a play on stage with me right there on the set.

The late 80s and early 90s was my coming of age with things on stage. This audio play brought me back there.

A Reflection of our 20th Century Past in America

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Holds up. Wonderful production. I was attracted by the actors. I grew up in the next generation. It’s like we’ve gone back in time, yet little change.

Hansberry today

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It is great to have the 2023 revival of Hansberry's play preserved on audio. I enjoyed it so very much and am eager to listen to it again soon! It is a wonderful companion to the boxed set of three vinyl LPs I found once of the Caedmon recording of Hansberry's first play, A Raisin in the Sun, with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis on the audio and directed by the original director on Broadway, Lloyd Richards. That was on the clearance shelf of a Half-Price Bookstore and cost fifty cents! I'm glad I read all the material on the page here at Audible to see that this production restores some original material and was edited by the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust. Audible Originals like this play and the work of the L.A. TheatreWorks are fantastic sources for people who love drama and enjoy audio performances of plays. An audio like this one may perplex or even irritate those who are used to less demanding fare (as we all sometimes favor), but there is room at Audible for all sorts of works. I look for performances of plays in the Audible originals and hope to find more.

Excellent, thrilling performance

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