A RAISIN IN THE SUN's Sophie Okonedo Wins Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play

Sophie Okonedo has won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for A Raisin in the Sun.

This is Sophie Okonedo's first Tony nomination and her Broadway debut. She starred as Cressida in the National Theatre's Troilus and Cressida (1999). Okonedo was nominated for an Academy Award for Hotel Rwanda in 2004 and a Golden Globe for Tsunami: The Aftermath in 2006.

Sophie Okonedo is an Academy Award nominee for her performance in the film Hotel Rwanda. A regular on the English stage where her credits include productions at the Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Old Vic. Her many film credits include acclaimed performances in Skin (Best Actress British Independent Film Award nomination), The Secret Life of Bees (NAACP Image Award nomination), Dirty Pretty Things (Best Supporting Actress, British Independent Film Awards). For her performance in Hotel Rwanda, Sophie was also nominated for the Screen Actors Guild and NAACP Image Awards. Her TV credits include HBO's Tsumani: The Aftermath (NAACP Image Award, Golden Globe Award nomination, Best Actress), and, for the BBC, "Criminal Justice" (BAFTA nomination, Best Supporting Actress) and Winnie Mandela in Mrs. Mandela (BAFTA nomination/Best Actress). A Raisin in the Sun is her New York stage debut.

About A Raisin in the Sun

Set on Chicago's South Side, A Raisin in the Sun revolved around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee (Denzel Washington), his wife Ruth (Sophie Okonedo), his sister Beneatha (Anika Noni Rose), his son Travis (Bryce Clyde Jenkins) and matriarch Lena, called Mama (LaTanya Richardson Jackson). When her deceased husband's money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama.

Originally produced in 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway, where it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.