Revival of ‘Angels in America’ set for off-B’way
(New York) “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” will fly again in New York - off-Broadway.
The mammoth, two-part drama by Tony Kushner will be presented by the Signature Theatre Company during its 2010-2011 season as part of a yearlong celebration of the playwright.
Artistic director James Houghton (HOW’-tuhn) …
Tags: Angels In America, Artistic Director, Broadway, Director James, Fly, Gay Fantasia, James Houghton, Mammoth, National Themes, New York Angels, Playwright, Revival, Signature Theatre, Tony Kushner, Yearlong CelebrationA Long Road Traveled
The last time I got as close to the White House as I did this week was many years ago—six years after the Stonewall riots, when I was a 13-year-old National Spelling Bee participant from St. Margaret’s School in Lowell, Mass. We spelling bee kids didn’t make it into the White House that day—we stood outside as first lady Betty Ford spoke to us from a balcony. By then I already knew I was gay. Raised in a staunch Catholic home and taught (and tormented) by nuns, I was certain that an open homosexual (that was the only term I knew back then) could never be allowed inside the White House. I knew nothing of the nascent gay-rights movement—it hadn’t reached Lowell in 1975. All I knew was that that whatever words there were to describe what I was, it would have to be suppressed forever. I assumed that I would have to either become a priest or figure out some other way to hide.
Thankfully, time marched on, and I eventually became a politicized college student rather than a candidate for the priesthood—and ultimately I kicked open my closet door and came out. But I can’t help thinking about that personal history as I replay the reel of yesterday’s visit to the White House in my head. As the executive director of SAGE, an advocacy group for LGBT senior citizens, I was invited, along with some 200 other LGBT leaders, to join the Obamas in commemorating gay pride—which falls this year on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
I was accompanied by three SAGE members: a lesbian couple who are 86 and 91, who reminisced about voting for FDR and described Barack Obama as “the most inspiring politician since Adlai Stevenson,” and a Stonewall veteran and founder of the Gay Liberation Front, an activist group formed in the aftermath, who proudly chose his SAGE T shirt over the ties worn by every other man in the room.
Apart from celebrating, we had gone to the White House to make a point: that older people have to be included in the Obama agenda for LGBT progress. And we did what we came to do, with one of our members (the Stonewall vet) even receiving a personal meeting with the president and Mrs. Obama. But as I stood with my partner, in the front row, some five feet from the presidential podium, I realized how intensely personal this experience was for me. I thought about how each member of the SAGE contingent has had our own life’s journey—and each of us was moved deeply and differently by that moment.
See A Long Road Traveled Newsweek
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Pulitzer-winner Kushner revels over Bachmann’s possible response to ‘Homosexual’ ads
Periodically each evening, the “smokestack”/LED sign atop the Guthrie Theater on Minneapolis’ riverfront lights up to spell out, in gigantic letters, “HOMOSEXUAL.” The word, along with others in the title of playwright Tony Kushner’s newest work have given the gay Pulitzer Prize winner pleasure recently. In the intro to an interview with CNN today, he speaks about how he felt first seeing bus advertisements for the Guthrie’s production of the play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,” on streets in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s home state:
“I was excited to see a bus go by a couple of months ago when I first got to Minneapolis and the only words you could make out as the bus went by were ‘homosexual’ and ’socialism,’” Kushner says, adding that the first thing he did when he saw it was call his husband back home in New York City.
“He said, ‘Yeah, it’s great — You’ve come up with a perfectly shaped 14-word phrase of English that’s guaranteed to give [Republican U.S. Rep.] Michele Bachmann a heart attack, and it doesn’t even have an active verb in it.’”
Bachmann — a conservative who made national headlines during last year’s election when she called for an investigation into “anti-American” members of Congress (including then-presidential candidate Barack Obama) — is a vocal critic of gay rights and supports a federal ban on gay marriages.
“So it’s like … I feel good about that,” Kushner adds with a chuckle.
“The Intelligent Homosexual,” as t-shirts available at the Guthrie shorten it to, was commissioned by the Guthrie and gets its lengthy title from two 19th-century books: George Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It closes June 28
See Pulitzer-winner Kushner revels over Bachmann’s possible response … Minnesota Independent
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In new play, Kushner back on gay turf of ‘Angels’
(Minneapolis) When Tony Kushner agreed to premiere a new play at the Guthrie Theater, the artistic director at the Minneapolis theater wanted to know what it would be called.
Kushner, who hadn’t yet decided what to write about, responded with a mouthful of a title that had been knocking around in …
Tags: Angels, Artistic Director, Gay Minneapolis, Guthrie Theater, Hadn, Minneapolis Theater, Mouthful, Play Gay, Premiere, Tony Kushner, TurfMichael Cristofer to Star in Kushner’s New Play
Originally scheduled to begin previews May 9 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage with an official opening scheduled for May 15, the production will now begin performances May 15.
“As planned,” a Guthrie spokesperson recently told Playbill.com, “the technical rehearsals will begin on May 5, but after discussions with Tony Kushner and [director] Michael Greif, [Guthrie artistic director] Joe Dowling decided to give the actors additional rehearsal time on the stage.” See Michael Cristofer to Star in Kushner’s The Intelligent …
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Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide Begins Guthrie Run May 15 Playbill.com -
The Guthrie Theater’s production of Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures begins previews at the Minnesota venue May 15 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.
Originally scheduled to begin performances May 9 with an official opening scheduled for May 15, the production was delayed by a week. “As planned,” a Guthrie spokesperson recently told Playbill.com, “the technical rehearsals [began] May 5, but after discussions with Tony Kushner and [director] Michael Greif, [Guthrie artistic director] Joe Dowling decided to give the actors additional rehearsal time on the stage.”
Opening night will now be May 22.
The title of Kushner’s new play, according to the Guthrie, is inspired by two 19th-century thinkers and their works — George Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Mary Baker Eddie’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
The play, according to press notes, “looks at the life of a 20th-century thinker, retired longshoreman Gus Marcantonio (filmmaker, actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Michael Cristofer), who’s feeling confused and defeated by the 21st century. In summer 2007, he invites his sister and his three children (who in turn bring along spouses, ex-spouses, lovers and more) to a most unusual family reunion in their Brooklyn brownstone.”
Photo: The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… stars Kathleen Chalfant and Michael Cristofer
photo by Michal Daniel
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