Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae to Play Nina Simone in Lorraine Hansberry Biopic

Issa Rae will play Nina Simone in Lorraine Hasnberry film

Issa Rae ( Awkward Black Girl ) has been tapped to take on the role of Nina Simone for an upcoming biopic on playwright, author, activist, and Nina’s close friend Lorraine Hansberry , most known for her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun .

Taye Hansberry , Lorraine’s great niece and the author of stuffshelikes.net , will play the lead role of her great aunt, who died at the very young age of 34 of pancreatic cancer.

And Jaleel White will play James Baldwin , who was Lorraine’s close friend and confidant.

Taye Hansberry takes on the likeness of great aunt Lorraine Hansberry

Production for the film, now in pre-production, is set to begin in early fall. The script is written by both Taye and Numa Perrier , who will also direct the film.

Lorraine Hansberry was first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award.

The successful A Raisin in the Sun , inspired by her family’s battle against racial segregation in Chicago, was the first play produced on Broadway by an African American woman, and a film version was released in 1961 starring Sidney Poitier .

Check out the mini-doc on Lorraine below.

Share This!