Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition

(Paperback, 20th Anniversary Edition)

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes includes Part One, Millennium Approaches and Part Two, Perestroika
Glorious. A monumental, subversive, altogether remarkable masterworkDetails of specific catastrophes may have changed since this Reagan-era AIDS epic won the Pulitzer and the Tony, but the real cosmic and human obsessionspower, religion, sex, responsibility, the future of the worldare as perilous, yet as falling-down funny, as ever. Linda Winer, Newsday
"A vast, miraculous play... provocative, witty and deeply upsetting... a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama." - Frank Rich, New York Times
"A victory for theater, for the transforming power of the imagination to turn devastation into beauty." - John Lahr, New Yorker
An enormously impressive work of the imagination and intellect, a towering example of what theater stretched to its full potential can achieve. -Philadelphia Inquirer
"Angels in America is the finest drama of our time, speaking to us of an entire era of life and death as no other play within memory. It ranks as nothing less than one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century." - John Heilpern, New York Observer
Some playwrights want to change the world. Some want to revolutionize theater. Tony Kushner is that rarity of rarities: a writer who has the promise to do both. -New York Times
This new edition of Tony Kushner's masterpiece is published with the author's recent changes and a new introduction in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its original production. One of the most honored American plays in history, Angels in America was awarded two Tony Awards for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was made into an Emmy Award-winning HBO film directed by Mike Nichols. This two-part epic, subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," has received hundreds of performances worldwide in more than twenty-six languages.
Tony Kushners plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexuals Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nicholss film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielbergs Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.
Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Reviews

Angels in America has proved to be a watershed drama, the most lyrical and ambitious augury of an era since Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie. John Lahr, New Yorker "A vast, miraculous play... provocative, witty and deeply upsetting... a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama." -Frank Rich, New York Times "Daring and dazzling! The most ambitious America play of our time: an epic that ranges from earth to heaven; focuses on politics, sex, and religion; transports us to Washington, the Kremlin, the South Bronx, Salt Lake City and Antarctica; deals with Jews, Mormons, WASPs, blacks; switches between realism and fantasy, from the tragedy of AIDS to the camp comedy of drag queens to the death or at least absconding of GodAngels in America is the broadest, deepest, most searching American play of our time." - Jack Kroll, Newsweek Few plays have captured the spirit of an age more powerfully than Angels in Americaand the passage of time has not clipped Angels wings. Paul Taylor, Independent (London) Something rare, dangerous, and harrowinga roman candle hurled into a drawing room. Nicholas de Jongh, London Evening Standard Angels breaks all the rules to achieve the astonishing integrity of its visionIt is a play that has remained utterly of-the-moment. Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg The most influential American play of the last two decades. Patrick Healy, New York Times That Angels came so close to the burning heart of the Zeitgeist left Kushner fearing he would never get there again. But in fact he has been there so often that he seems to have passed right through itAngels, so much a cry in the dark about AIDS when it was written, seems now to be as much about the Earths potentially fatal illness as gay mens. Jesse Green, New York The greatest American play of the waning years of the twentieth century. Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

Author Bio

Tony Kushners plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexuals Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nicholss film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielbergs Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.