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Angels in America
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{{Short description|1993 Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Tony Kushner}} {{For|the miniseries|Angels in America (miniseries){{!}}''Angels in America'' (miniseries)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2018}} {{Use American English|date=October 2023}} {{Infobox play | name = Angels in America | image = Angels in America, Millennium Approaches (1993) poster.jpg | image_size = | caption = | writer = [[Tony Kushner]] | characters = Prior Walter<br />[[Roy Cohn]]<br />Joe Pitt<br />Harper Pitt<br />Hannah Pitt<br />Louis Ironson<br />Belize<br />[[Ethel Rosenberg]]<br />Homeless Woman<br />Angel | setting = New York City, Salt Lake City, and elsewhere, 1985–1986 | premiere = May 1991 | place = [[Eureka Theatre Company]]<br />San Francisco, California | orig_lang = English | genre = Drama }} {{Infobox play | name = Angels in America: Perestroika | image = | image_size = | caption = | writer = [[Tony Kushner]] | characters = Prior Walter<br />[[Roy Cohn]]<br />Joe Pitt<br />Harper Pitt<br />Hannah Pitt<br />Louis Ironson<br />Belize<br />[[Ethel Rosenberg]]<br />Homeless Woman<br />Angel | setting = New York City, the Kremlin, heaven, and elsewhere, 1986–1990 | premiere = November 8, 1992 | place = [[Mark Taper Forum]]<br />Los Angeles, California | orig_lang = English | genre = Drama }} '''''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes''''' is a 1991 American two-part [[Play (theatre)|play]] by American [[playwright]] [[Tony Kushner]]. The two parts of the play, '''''Millennium Approaches''''' and '''''Perestroika''''', may be presented separately. The work won numerous awards, including the [[Pulitzer Prize for Drama]], the [[Tony Award for Best Play]], and the [[Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play]]. Part one of the play premiered in 1991, followed by part two in 1992.<ref name="shmoop">{{cite web|url=http://www.shmoop.com/angels-in-america-part-1|title=Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches Introduction|publisher=Shmoop|access-date=2018-03-15}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Lahr |first=John |date=1992-11-15 |title=Tony Kushner and the Making of "Angels in America" |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1992/11/23/beyond-nelly |access-date=2025-04-18 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> Its [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] opening was in 1993.<ref name="shmoop"/> The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of [[AIDS]] and homosexuality in the United States in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains [[dual role|multiple roles]] for several actors. Initially and primarily focusing on one gay and one straight couple in Manhattan, the plot has several additional storylines, some of which intersect occasionally. In 1994, playwright and professor of theater studies John M. Clum called the play "a turning point in the history of gay drama, the history of [[American drama]], and of American literary culture".<ref>"Introduction" in Geis, Deborah R.; Kruger, Steven F. (eds.) (1997). ''Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p. 1, citing John M. Clum, ''Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama'', New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 324.</ref> It is widely described as one of the greatest plays of the [[Twentieth-century theatre|20th century]] and of all time.{{efn|1=Attributed to multiple sources.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lister |first=David |date=18 October 1998 |title='Waiting for Godot' voted best modern play in English |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/waiting-for-godot-voted-best-modern-play-in-english-1178953.html |access-date=16 October 2020 |work=The Independent}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130129192504/http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk:80/discover-more/platforms/nt2000-one-hundred-plays-of-the-century Archive webpage by the National Theatre of the NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century]</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Hickling |first=Alfred |date=2002-10-14 |title=Angels in America |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2002/oct/14/theatre.artsfeatures1 |access-date=2025-04-18 |work=[[The Guardian]] |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |quote=[[Unity Theatre, Liverpool|Unity Theatre]]'s brilliant vindication proves that Angels in America was not only the greatest play of the 1980s - it is one of the greatest plays of the last century.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2018-05-31 |title=The Great Work Continues: The 25 Best American Plays Since 'Angels in America' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/31/theater/best-25-plays.html |access-date=2025-04-18 |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |quote=Tony Kushner’s “gay fantasia,” fusing the ambition, morality and underdog sympathies of earlier 20th century masters, felt not only like a great American play but like a culmination and reimagining of great American playness. It slammed a door open. That was 1993. Exactly 25 years later, the first Broadway revival of “Angels in America” started us thinking about what has happened to American plays in the meantime. Have they been as great? Is their greatness different from what it was? Is “greatness” even a meaningful category anymore?}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lawson |first=Richard |date=2018-03-26 |title=Review: Angels in America Returns to Broadway in All Its Triumph and Tragedy |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/03/angels-in-america-revival-broadway-review?srsltid=AfmBOorFsKAE72VhjrzueMuw36xrZSqiePDsxPz0_X3mCanqh0TZXOWi |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]] |language=en-US |quote=One of the great plays of the 20th century has received a lush, uneven, thought-provoking revival.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=50 greatest plays of the past 100 years (1913–2013) |url=https://ew.com/gallery/50-greatest-plays-past-100-years/?srsltid=AfmBOorh_zVXqXpowbHvfOJZVym2b8H0rNzQ9GQpewoELC3Ciqe5VfMz |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=EW.com |language=en |quote=In his seven-hour epic, Kushner (husband of EW columnist Mark Harris) grapples with gay identity in the midst of the AIDS crisis and depicts characters both straight and gay, fictional and real (including deeply closeted McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn).}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Marks |first=Peter |date=2018-03-25 |title=Review {{!}} Forget 'important.' 'Angels in America' is brilliantly entertaining. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/forget-important-angels-in-america-is-brilliantly-entertaining/2018/03/25/b6e5c34c-2e04-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story.html |access-date=2025-04-18 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286 |quote=This is, to my mind, much more than a nostalgic reexamination of one of the high points of late-20th-century theater;}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-05-05 |title=Did the critics find Angels in America heavenly? |url=https://www.whatsonstage.com/news/did-the-critics-find-angels-in-america-heavenly_43520/ |access-date=2025-04-18 |language=en-US |quote=It now stands as a canonical classic, probably the great American play of the late 20th century.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-06-28 |title=How Angels in America Became the Defining Work of American Art of the Past 25 Years |url=https://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2016/06/oral_history_of_tony_kushner_s_play_angels_in_america.html |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate Magazine]] |quote=Both parts of Angels, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, put gay men at the center of American politics, history, and mythology at a time when they were marginalized by the culture at large and dying in waves.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Angels in America: The Dream Life of Angels |url=https://www.out.com/entertainment/theater/2010/10/26/angels-america-dream-life-angels |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=[[Out (magazine)|Out]] |language=en |quote=London's [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] declared it one of the 10 greatest plays of the century. The literary critic [[Harold Bloom]] included it in his Western Canon, one of only a handful of 20th-century plays so honored.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Teary Nathan Lane Wins Third Tony Award for Angels in America: 'This Award Is a Lovely Vote of Confidence That I've Been on the Right Path' |url=https://www.broadway.com/buzz/192475/teary-nathan-lane-wins-third-tony-award-for-angels-in-america-this-award-is-a-lovely-vote-of-confidence-that-ive-been-on-the-right-path/ |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=Broadway.com |language=en |quote=I'm standing here because Tony wrote one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, and it is still speaking to us as powerfully as ever in the midst of such political insanity.}}</ref>}} In 2003, [[HBO]] adapted ''Angels in America'' into a six-episode [[Angels in America (miniseries)|miniseries of the same title]]. In the Sunday, June 25, 2006, edition of [[The Record (North Jersey)|''The Record'']], in an article headlined “An AIDS anniversary: 25 years in the arts”, Bill Ervolino listed the miniseries among the 12 best filmed portrayals of AIDS to date.<ref>[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2003079432_filmaids25.html "An AIDS anniversary: 25 years in the arts"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110622010444/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2003079432_filmaids25.html|date=June 22, 2011}}. ''[[The Seattle Times]]'', June 25, 2006.[https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/20060625/filmaids25/an-aids-anniversary-25-years-in-the-arts]</ref> In 2017, the play received a much-acclaimed [[West End revival]] that won the [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival]] in [[2018 Laurence Olivier Awards|2018]]. Later that year the production transferred to Broadway, where it won [[72nd Tony Awards|three Tony Awards]], including [[Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play|Best Revival of a Play]].
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