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"  Sophie Okonedo grew up in Wembley, a &amp;quot;pretty boring&amp;quot; neighborhood of northwest London. Anika Noni Rose grew up &amp;quot;a complete nerd&amp;quot; in a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut. One of the many great cross-pollinating effects of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry&amp;#039;s classic American study of race and real estate, is that 55 years after becoming the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway it continues to bring together disparate ideas, diverse audiences\u2014and distinctive actors. This month, as Okonedo and Rose star alongside Denzel Washington in a much-anticipated Broadway revival, it&amp;#039;s especially evident how far the play has extended its grip on the world&amp;#039;s imagination. Related: Idina Menzel: Back on Broadway You might think that Okonedo, with a white Jewish mother and a black Nigerian father, would have encountered Hansberry&amp;#039;s investigation of the price of integration even in Wembley, but &amp;quot;it was not part of our growing up,&amp;quot; she says. Rather, she came to the part of Ruth Younger, the long-suffering wife of Washington&amp;#039;s Walter Lee, after a stage and movie career highlighted by an Oscar nomination for her harrowing performance in 2004&amp;#039;s Hotel Rwanda. When she did finally read A Raisin in the Sun, she found it &amp;quot;extraordinary&amp;quot;\u2014not just for its time but &amp;quot;in the context of now.&amp;quot; It is, after all, the story of a poor black family struggling to escape a Chicago slum, but blocked at every exit by racial restrictions and fights over money. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s not still relevant?&amp;quot; Okonedo asks. Now she&amp;#039;s trying to honor that relevance by catching up on the historical background that &amp;quot;the other actors already have.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I have to get it!&amp;quot; she laughs. Related: &amp;#039;The Bridges of Madison County&amp;#039; Heads to Broadway with a Fresh Female Perspective Certainly Rose already had it. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t remember ever not knowing about the play,&amp;quot; she says. And after a career mostly spent breaking new ground (winning a 2004 Tony for her moving performance in Caroline, or Change; voicing the role of Tiana, the first black Disney princess, in The Princess and the Frog in 2009), she leapt at the chance to &amp;quot;create a new character within the old one&amp;quot; of Beneatha, the younger sister of Walter Lee. Like Beneatha, a would-be medical student who represents the Younger family&amp;#039;s tenuous hold on the future, Rose is vigorously outspoken, finding the continued significance of the play to be &amp;quot;good for us as performers, and an amazing tribute to the woman as a writer, but unfortunate for us as a society.&amp;quot; Case in point: the housing crisis. &amp;quot;People who work all the time and pool their resources still can&amp;#039;t afford an apartment without roaches, or with enough space for everyone to close their door, or a house with a patch of land,&amp;quot; she marvels. Which is not to say that either actress brings a despairing viewpoint to a work the playwright chose to end on a moment of slim hope. (Hansberry&amp;#039;s own family made it out of the ghetto.) Okonedo feels a joyful sense of accomplishment just having the chance to work for the first time on Broadway. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve made it again!&amp;quot; she says. Meanwhile, Rose, an old hand there, keeps an eye out for her new-to-New York colleague. Not that Okonedo needs much help\u2014even her 1950s Chicago accent is &amp;quot;coming along.&amp;quot; In fact, Rose admits, &amp;quot;most of the advice I&amp;#039;m giving her is about food!&amp;quot; This story originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of ELLE magazine. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/reviews/a14157/anika-noni-rose-sophie-okonedo-a-raisin-in-the-sun-broadway/>