Kushner, Tony Books

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Part One: Millennium Approaches Part Two: Perestroika

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $11.65 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 122 new & used starting at $4.94

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> Entertainment -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Tony Kushner's Angels in America is that rare entity: a work for the stage that is profoundly moving yet very funny, highly theatrical yet steeped in traditional literary values, and most of all deeply American in its attitudes and political concerns. In two full-length plays--Millennium Approaches and Perestroika--Kushner tells the story of a handful of people trying to make sense of the world. Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.

But such a summary does not do justice to Kushner's grand plan, which mixes magical realism with political speeches, high comedy with painful tragedy, and stitches it all together with a daring sense of irony and a moral vision that demands respect and attention. On one level, the play is an indictment of the government led by Ronald Reagan, from the blatant disregard for the AIDS crisis to the flagrant political corruption. But beneath the acute sense of political and moral outrage lies a meditation on what it means to live and die--of AIDS, or anything else--in a society that cares less and less about human life and basic decency. The play's breadth and internal drive is matched by its beautiful writing and unbridled compassion. Winner of two Tony Awards and the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Angels in America is one of the most outstanding plays of the American theater. --Michael Bronski

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (Angels in America)

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $9.56 List Price: $11.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 237 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I love this book! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I'm a college student majoring in Theater Design. I had to read this play for one of my classes my freshman year. So I sat down expecting to plod through a story that I'd never read again. Boy was I shocked! I loved it! I couldn't put it down until I'd read the last page, and then I got right online and ordered the sequel. Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of the second book. I haven't read it in a while, but from what I remember it's more offensive, and honestly, a little more like smut. There's an angel with 7 vaginas and it has sex with one of the characters...one of the gay characters..go figure. The second book also seems to take more pot shots at God, which I didn't appreciate as a Christian. Anyway. This is a review of the first book, not the second. (just reminding myself!) I have 7 big bookcases of books at my parents' house, plus my dad is a librarian, so I do a LOT of reading. This book is ALWAYS one of the few "Chosen" books that I take to college with me to keep in my dorm. And just as a side note, I'm not gay, so this book is NOT just for gay people like some of the people whom I've talked to seem to think. BUY IT! You'll be enlightened and inspired to think.

Editorial Review:

The most anticipated new American play of the decade, this brilliant work is an emotional, poetic, political epic in two parts: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. Spanning the years of the Reagan administration, it weaves the lives of fictional and historical characters into a feverish web of social, political, and sexual revelations.

Arthur Miller: Collected Plays 1944-1961 (Library of America)

Arthur Miller

Amazon Price: $23.10 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Library of America Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $17.84

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( M ) -> Miller, Arthur
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> United States

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the inaugural volume of its collected edition of Miller's plays, The Library of America gathers the works from the 1940s and 1950s that electrified theatergoers and established Miller as one of the indispensable voices of the postwar era. Among the plays included are All My Sons, the story of an industrialist confronted with his moral lapses during World War II; Death of a Salesman, the wrenching tragedy of Willy Loman's demise; The Crucible, at once a riveting reconstruction of the Salem witch trials and a parable of McCarthyism; and A View from the Bridge, Miller's tale of betrayal among Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, presented here in both the original one-act and revised two-act versions.

This volume also contains the intriguing early drama The Man Who Had All the Luck, the first of Miller's plays to be produced on Broadway, along with his adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, the autobiographical one-act A Memory of Two Mondays, and Miller's novella The Misfits, based on the screenplay he wrote for Marilyn Monroe.

Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $11.01 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 183 new & used starting at $0.05

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Angels in America is a story of love, happiness, sadness etc 4 out of 5 stars.
14 of 19 people found this review helpful.

Tony Kushner has an interesting way of showing his audience how reality isn't really fun at all. He walks us through the lives of a group of people in which they all know each other somewhere along the line. Tragedy has struck a gay couple...AIDS. Prior contracted aids, hence, his boyfriend decided to leave him. Joe is a married man who is in the closet about being gay, whereas, his wife Harper is an agoraphobic addicted to valium. Life isn't very simple among this group. Kushner somehow makes this story somewhat beautiful. As Prior is dying, Kushner has this Angel come and comfort him. He shows his audience how one may deal with such issues. He sends the message that when things go wrong, stay strong and follow your heart, and everything will turn out okay. Some of the characters in Angels in America changed throughout the story, which made things all the more interesting. For instance, I first perceived Joe as this sweet, original, money making husband. I eventually realized that he was different than what I thought. He turned out to be a confused, gay, and sometimes weak person.

Overall, I think Kushner did a wonderful job in writing this book. There were plenty of times where I found myself to not be able to put down the book. It was very creative, truthful, loving, sad, hopeful, tragic, and powerful. I know that Tony Kushner is an excellent writer just because he can smoothly combine all of those emotions into one story, and make it sound good. Angels in America is an excellent novel, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Editorial Review:

The second half of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Angels in America, follows the characters introduced in Millennium Approaches into the 1990s as they continue to struggle with the ravages of AIDS. Original.

A Bright Room Called Day

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $12.00 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $2.37

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> New York

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Bright and Brilliant 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Many plays have focused on groups of people fighting their many losing battles. In Tony Kushner's first well-known work, these people are the Communist Party in 1930's Germany; knowing full well that they live in turbulent times, they are fighting to stay standing. Agnes Eggling, unsure of even the philosophy to which she has ascribed, clings to her apartment. She pays her rent, and in return, she has this small "bright room called day," where she is temporarily safe.
"A Bright Room Called Day" displays all the characteristics of the more well-known "Angels in America." There is a great deal of political discussion, but also the painful and individual conflicts between characters. Lines are laced with wry irony, and characters often speak in poetic, beautiful language. I have not yet found another playwright whose characters are both so verbose and so real.
Neither is today's world left out; scenes from Germany are peppered with refreshing but unsettling monologues from a modern woman. She is very angry and a little lost - just as caught up in the tides of her times as the other characters are in theirs. Although, in the original version of the play, she ranted against Ronald Reagan, this copy contains a revised set of monologues prepared for an early 1990's performance. Three different decades in one play; that's a broad scope, and it makes a brilliant read. My one regret is that I have never seen "A Bright Room Called Day" performed.

Editorial Review:

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America comes this powerful portrayal of individual dissolution and resolution in the face of political catastrophe. A Bright Room Called Day premiered in San Francisco at the Eureke Theatre in 1987 and was subsequently produced at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1991.

Homebody/Kabul: Revised Version

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $7.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul is the most remarkable play in a decade . . . without a doubt the most important of our time."-John Heilpern, New York Observer

"This compelling evening testifies that Mr. Kushner can still deliver his sterling brand of goods: a fusion of politics, poetry and boundless empathy transformed through language into passionate, juicy theater . . . a reminder of how essential and heartening Mr. Kushner's voice remains."-Ben Brantley, New York Times

"Homebody/Kabul is a rich and intelligent piece."-Peter Brook

"Searing . . . Kushner's use of language and ideas continues to make us think about the deeper questions . . . he makes the political personal . . . a masterful conglomerate of words, ideas and history."-Mary Houlihan, Chicago Sun Times

In Homebody/Kabul, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America, has turned his penetrating gaze to the arena of global politics to create this suspenseful portrait of a dangerous collision between cultures. Written before 9-11, this play premiered in New York in December 2001 and has had subsequent highly successful productions in London, Providence, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. This version incorporates all the playwright's changes over the past two years and is now the definitive version of the text.

Tony Kushner's plays include A Bright Room Called Day and Slavs!; as well as adaptations of Corneille's The Illusion, Ansky's The Dybbuk, Brecht's The Good Person of Szecguan and Goethe's Stella. Current projects include: Henry Box Brown or The Mirror of Slavery; and two musical plays: St. Cecilia or The Power of Music and Caroline or Change. He recently collaborated with Maurice Sendak on an American version of the children's opera, Brundibar. He grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he lives in New York.

The Greek Plays

Ellen McLaughlin

Amazon Price: $14.78 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Theatre Communications Group Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $11.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Performing Arts -> Theater -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From The Persians
"Defeat is impossible
Defeat is unthinkable
We have always been the favorites of fate.
Fortune has cupped us
In her golden palms.
It has only been a matter
Of choosing our desire. Which fruit
To pick from the nodding tree."

This chilling passage is from Ellen McLaughlin's new adaptation of The Persians by Aeschylus, the earliest surviving play in Western literature, an elegy for a fallen civi-lization and a warning to its new conqueror. As Margo Jefferson wrote in the New York Times, "The play is a true classic: we see the present and the future right there, inside the past. And when writers give us a 'new version' (a translation or adaptation) of a classic, they both serve and use it. They serve the playwright's gifts by refusing to simplify. But they can't just imitate. Every age has its own rhythms and drives. The classic must make us feel the new acutely. Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace."

Also included in this volume: Iphigenia and Other Daughters (from Euripides and Sophocles); The Trojan Women (Euripides); Helen (Euripides); and Lysistrata (Aristophanes), all powerfully realized and as relevant today as when they were first performed.

Ellen McLaughlin's plays include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity's House and Tongue of a Bird, which have been widely produced. She is a past finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and was the co-winner of the Great American Play Contest. Also an accomplished actor, Ms. McLaughlin is most known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production through its Broadway run.

The Illusion

Tony Kushner, Pierre Corneille

Amazon Price: $8.95 List Price: $8.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $5.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

great adaptation 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

if you know pierre corneille and his work, you will admire kushner for adapting a play of him so successfully. theater full of illusions. what is real what's not. 17th century and year 2000. many things have changed but the magic on and about stage still remains. kushner gives a great example of adapting a play. the characters may speak in poetry but 20th centuries flair is obvious.

The Adaptation is Phenomenal 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This spring, we will be performing Tony Kushner's adaptation of "The Illusion" at my high school. I could not have asked for a better play. Besides the fact that I'll be playing Pridament (a wonderful boost to my ego), the play itself is genius. I was under its spell starting on page one, and didn't stop enjoying it until the twist ending and startling conclusion. It is the prime example of a perfect play: stylized, with your typical hero-heroine-rival-clown setup. Comic dialogue, a tragic, heartbreaking theme, and most of the sensual delights of a traditional sex farce.

The story outline is simple: a desperate, depressed, dying lawyer (Pridament of Avignon) visits the cave of the magician Alcandre. His dying wish is to find his only son, whom he had banished fifteen years before. With the help of Alcandre and his servant, the tortured deaf-mute Amanuensis, Pridament sees several visions of his son's life over the past years. He witnesses three different visions, all of which involve his son, a lover and her scheming maid, and a vengeful rival. Most of the action of the play takes place within these visions, with Alcandre and Pridament simply watching from the outside. But when this play really shines is within the short scenes between the father, magician, and servant. The characterizations of all three, especially of the Amanuensis (a mostly silent role), are key to the theme of the play.

The diction of this play is phenomenal. Written completely in free poetic verse, it has the most extensive vocabulary of any play I have read. Full of alliteration, allusion, rhyme and bizarre sentance structure, The Illusion truly lives up to its name.

"He doesn't speak because he has no tongue..."

"If not in this life, than in the next."

The Boys in the Band: 40th Anniversary Edition

Mart Crowley

Amazon Price: $10.92 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Alyson Books Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $8.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> British & Irish -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> United States

Editorial Review:

"Boys can still hold its own . . . [Mart] Crowley's point is about how the humor is shaped and defined by the pain."-The New York Times

The Boys in the Band was the first commercially successful play to reveal gay life to mainstream America. Alyson is proud to release a special fortieth anniversary edition of the play, which includes an original preface by acclaimed writer Tony Kushner (Angels in America), along with previously unpublished photographs of Mart Crowley and the cast of the play/film.

Mart Crowley's other plays include the autobiographical A Breeze from the Gulf (1973) and The Men from the Boys (2002).

Angels in America

Tony Kushner

Amazon Price: $19.32 List Price: $19.32 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks By: Nick Hern Books Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $19.32

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( K ) -> Kushner, Tony
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Drama -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Pushed me out of my comfort zone 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I think this might have been the first piece of gay literature that I've ever read. Or at least it's the longest.

It's definitely written by a gay guy. It has more characters than any other non-musical play that I've ever read. It was dizzying, and was similar to how I imagine a drag show like Le Cage would go.

It had Mormons in it, but it wasn't about Mormons. I think that only three things have ever done that before that have portrayed Mormons accurately.

It was hard to read and at the same time was very, very interesting.

So, five stars for pushing me outside of my comfort zone.

Editorial Review:

Part One of "Angels in America", subtitled "Millennium Approaches", erupted on to the stage of the National Theatre in January 1992. Part Two, "Perestroika", followed in November 1993. Since then "Angels in America" has become one of the most studied American plays, with over 30,000 copies of both parts sold in the UK alone. It has also been filmed for television by Mike Nichols, with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep - and Emma Thompson as the eponymous Angel. Now, 15 years after that first production, and with Tony Kushner's latest play, "Caroline, or Change", still running - and winning prizes - at the National, both parts of "Angels in America" are available in a single volume. Parts One and Two will also stay in print in separate volumes.