The Gamm Theatre Stages Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA
The pair of productions gets underway with Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches opening on May 29.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre will present a special staging of Tony Kushner's two-part epic, Angels in America, directed by Brian McEleney. The pair of productions gets underway with Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches opening on May 29. The second half of this multi-award-winning masterpiece, Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika, opens September 25.
Among the most searching and imaginative dramas in the American canon, Kushner's landmark play confronts the great cultural, political, religious, and sexual themes of our era. The first half, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, starts in the 1980s against the backdrop of New York City when the devastating AIDS epidemic is raging and the Reagan White House is failing miserably at confronting it. The story revolves around the intersecting lives of eight characters with different relationships to AIDS and homosexuality.
Considered by many to be the greatest play of the last 30 years, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches premiered at San Francisco's Eureka Theatre Company in 1991. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika followed at the Mark Taper Forum in 1992. The pair of plays debuted on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993. They won an avalanche of industry awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. The 2003 HBO Films miniseries Angels in America won both the Golden Globe and Emmy awards for best miniseries.
McEleney, who played a central role as Prior Walter in Trinity Repertory Company's acclaimed 1996 production directed by Oskar Eustis, said he is eager to introduce the play with its still relevant themes to new audiences.
“Angels in America was written in a different time, and history has continued its relentless march forward in the last 30 or so years since I played Prior Walter,” McEleney said. “We are a different country now, and the pace of change in our lives continues to accelerate. As the second quarter of the 21st century approaches, I'm eager to discover how this most ambitious and prescient of plays speaks to a new generation. Kushner's call for all of us to be angels in America could not be more urgent as we hurtle toward the future with terror, determination . . . and hope.”
Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella, who plays the role of the complex and controversial lawyer Roy Cohn, echoed McEleney.
“Three decades on, Angels in America remains a north star for American theater and a standard bearer for the unique power of this art form. It illuminates the darkest corners of human experience, revealing hope, grace and transcendence in the midst of great pain and suffering,” Estrella said. “The Gamm's growth over the past 40 years has led us to this point, eager and equipped to take on this bonfire of a play. It is also a good time to remember, as Mr. Kushner reminds us so powerfully, that ‘the world only spins forward.'”
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches runs May 29-June 15. Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika runs September 25-October 12. (These speical productions are not part of a subscription series.) Tickets range from $70-$80 per play with discounts for subscribers to season 40 and/or season 41, as well as current members. To purchase, go to gammtheatre.org/angels or call 401-723-4266.
ABOUT ANGELS IN AMERICA
In the first part of Tony Kushner's epic, set in 1980s New York City, a gay man is abandoned by his lover when he contracts the AIDS virus, and a closeted Mormon lawyer's marriage to his pill-popping wife stalls. Other characters include the infamous McCarthy-ite lawyer Roy Cohn, Ethel Rosenberg, a former drag queen named Belize who works as a nurse, and an angel. In the second part, the plague of AIDS worsens, relationships fall apart as new ones form, and unexpected friendships take form.
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