Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 24, 2004|Volume 33, Number 4

Tony Kushner

Noted playwright to speak
about his life, Jewish religion

Award-winning writer Tony Kushner will speak about his life, his religion and his work during a visit to Yale on Tuesday, Sept. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in Battell Chapel, corner of College and Elm streets.

His talk, "Jewish In America," is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, the David and Goldie Blanksteen Lectureship in Jewish Ethics of Yale Hillel and the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, clinical professor of surgery and gastro-enterology and author of prize-winning books of non-fiction, will interview Kushner.

Kushner's epic drama "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" won a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, the Evening Standard Award, two Olivier Award nominations, the New York Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the LAMBDA Liberty Award for Drama. An HBO miniseries adaptation of the play won a record 11 Emmy Awards, including a best writing award for Kushner. The play focuses on three households: a gay couple, one of whom has AIDS; a Mormon man coming to terms with his sexuality; and the famed anti-communist lawyer Roy Cohn, who denied his homosexuality throughout his life until he died of AIDS in 1986. The 2003 HBO television version of the play was directed by Mike Nichols and featured Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson.

Other plays by Kushner include "A Bright Room Called Day" and "Slavs!" as well as adaptations of Goethe's "Stella," Brecht's "The Good Person of Szechwan," Corneille's "The Illusion" and Ansky's "The Dybbuk." His recent work includes "Henry Box Brown or the Mirror of Slavery," "Caroline or Change" and "Homebody/Kabul." His plays have been produced at the Mark Taper Forum, the New York Shakespeare Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, Hartford Stage Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Los Angeles Theatre Center, as well as in theaters around the world. In 2003, Kushner published a picture book, "Brundibar," with author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. He also wrote the text for "The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present."

Among his many honors are fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Foundation, and a medal from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Addressing current political topics in his two most recent works, Kushner edited "Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" and wrote "Save Your Democratic Soul! Rants, Screeds and Other Public Utterances."

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Grant to support research on role of viruses in cancer

Series honors graduation of Yale's first Chinese student 150 years ago

Program marks 35th anniversary of Afro-American Cultural Center

Study: Recreational gambling can be good for seniors' health

Yale launches $1 million United Way drive

Symposium to explore past and future of suburbanization

Event honors late historian of American South

New bioscience company at Science Park offering . . .

Exhibit showcases work of long-ignored landscape artist

Mayhew lauded for his studies of party politics

Congress' only Holocaust survivor to discuss . . .

Noted playwright to speak about his life, Jewish religion

Prize-winning poet Adrienne Rich will read from her work

Older marathon runners are making greater strides . . .

Cultivating a culture of trust was topic of inaugural conference

Dwight Hall interns devote the summer to causes in New Haven

Reimbursements now available through direct deposit

IN MEMORIAM