by Isaac Butler
First published 2020
Tony Kushner's Angels in America premiered on Broadway in 1993 and became a cultural phenomenon. The play won the Pulitzer Prize and swept the Tony Awards. Mike Nichols later adapted it for HBO in 2003, starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Mary-Louise Parker. The adaptation won eleven Emmys and multiple Golden Globes. Isaac Butler and Dan Kois tell this story through oral history, gathering voices from nearly 250 interviews. They spoke with the original cast including Nathan Lane and Jeffrey Wright, plus directors, producers, crew members, and Kushner himself. The authors reveal the chaotic production process behind the scenes. Technical disasters struck the show. Legal disputes erupted. Creative conflicts arose between collaborators. Historians and critics place the work within the broader context of American culture during the AIDS crisis and Reagan era. The book traces the play's journey from its rough San Francisco debut through its 2018 Broadway revival, showing how this work changed how gay lives appeared in popular culture.
Genres: drama, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, historical-fiction
Setting: Broadway, San Francisco
Period: 1993, 2003, 2018
448 pages · ebook · Bloomsbury