"A Raisin in the Sun" Shines Again on Broadway- with Two Larchmont Producers

by Joan R. Simon

(April 13, 2004) It may come as a surprise to learn that behind one of the biggest revivals on Broadway this season, A Raisin in the Sun, are two Larchmont women: Ruth Hendel and Barbara Whitman. They may not be getting the same publicity as Raisin stars Sean Combs (aka P. Diddy), Tony-Award winner Audra McDonald or Phylicia Rashad (of The Cosby Show), but they are working enthusiastically behind the scenes as producers of A Raisin in the Sun, which has been hailed as one of a handful of great American plays.

Ruth Hendel with her two "children": A Raisin in the Sun and Caroline, or Change

What, one might ask, do producers actually do? Hendel and Whitman explained that on every play there is a lead producer (or producers) who conceives of the project, obtains the rights, and hires the major participants, such as the director and casting agent. Financing the show is next and that is when additional, “commercial” producers, such as Hendel and Whitman, come in. Their job is both to support the production financially and work to make it a success. Among their duties is attendance at frequent management meetings, where decisions on advertising, sales, marketing and promotion are made.

As befits a theater producer, the phone was constantly ringing as Hendel spoke with the Gazette from her home study, surrounded by shelves piled high with theater memorabilia and scripts from would-be dramatists. She described her ordinary suburban life after graduate school in communications and research work at ABC-TV. “I was a typical soccer mom,” she related, and all three of her children graduated from Mamaroneck High School. For six years she ran a PTA after-school club at Murray Avenue School called “Mrs. Hendel’s First Stages of Drama.”

Barbara Whitman: A producer for Raisin in the Sun

Whitman was an actress for ten years with summer stock and national touring companies before settling into the suburbs with her two sons who are now in the 7th and 9th grades in the Mamaroneck schools. Juggling her children’s schedule and a PTA treasurer’s position, Whitman is also studying at Columbia’s MFA program in Theater Management and Producing, which she describes as “an MBA for theater.” She added, “What’s interesting for me now is that when I sit at these production meetings, this time it’s real instead of theoretical.”

Whitman’s husband, David Carlyon, has thespian roots as well. An actor and former theater professor at the University of Michigan, he also worked for several years as a circus clown with Ringling Brothers. That experience inspired him to write Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You’ve Never Heard Of about the famous 19th century clown and showman. The entire Carlyon family participated in the Semi-Royal Shakespeare Company’s March production of A Comedy of Errors, with the kids on stage and Carlyon volunteering as an acting coach. Whitman, not surprisingly, served as a producer.

While Raisin is Whitman’s first production venture, Hendel has been involved with non-profit theater groups as well as Off-Broadway and Broadway shows for several years. Among her hits are the highly acclaimed The Exonerated, which ran for a year and a half before closing last month; Metamorphoses, which won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Best Play and the 2002 Tony for Best Director; and Golda’s Balcony which is currently running at the Helen Hayes Theater. But Hendel hastens to add that not all of her ventures have been successful: “We’re not even going to talk about the bloopers.”

Hendel is also enthusiastic about her involvement with Tony Kushner’s new musical Caroline, or Change, which she refers to as her other “child” this spring. The successful off-Broadway show moved uptown to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on May 2.

The revival of A Raisin in the Sun, which was originally staged in 1959 as the first Broadway play written by a black woman, is currently in previews at the Royale Theater (tickets through telecharge.com/raisininthesun). It opens on April 26, with a limited run ending July 11. Hendel was pleased to report that standing ovations have become the norm at the preview performances. Her eyes lit up when she took a call from a friend as he was leaving last Wednesday’s matinee. He enthusisastically reported, “It was incredible – the best show I’ve seen. There were even people crying during the performance.”

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