Angels in America: The Making of a Masterpiece 
A Conversation with Tony Kushner and Oskar Eustis

ADMISSION:
Admission is free. Reservations required.

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DESCRIPTION:
First performed in 1991, Angels in America explored AIDS, homophobia, race, religion, and more. The USC School of Dramatic Arts will celebrate the legacy of playwright Tony Kushner’s masterpiece with performances from April 18–27 and several related events. 

At this special panel, USC School of Dramatic Arts lecturer Tony Taccone brings together Kushner (via Zoom) and Oskar Eustis, the original director of Angels in America, Part One: Millenium Approaches and co-director of the complete work with Taccone, to discuss the creation and continued legacy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and its resonance for today’s audiences and scholars. 
 

Bios:

Oskar Eustis has served as the artistic director of The Public Theater since 2005. He came to The Public from Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI, where he served as artistic director from 1994–2005. Eustis served as associate artistic director at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum from 1989–1994; and prior to that he was with the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco, serving as resident director and dramaturg from 1981–1986 and artistic director from 1986–1989. Eustis is currently a professor of Dramatic Writing and Arts and Public Policy at New York University and has held professorships at UCLA, Middlebury College, and Brown University, where he founded and chaired the Trinity Rep/Brown University Consortium for professional theater training. While at the Eureka Theatre, he commissioned Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and directed its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.

Born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, LA, Tony Kushner is best known for his two-part epic, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. His other plays include A Bright Room Called Day, Slavs!, Hydrotaphia, Homebody/Kabul; as well as a musical Caroline, or Change, and opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, both with composer Jeanine Tesori. Kushner has translated and adapted Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, and the English-language libretto for the children’s opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ film of Angels In America, and Steven Spielberg’s Munich.  His screenplay for Spielberg’s movie Lincoln was nominated for an Academy Award, and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award, Boston Society of Film Critics Award, Chicago Film Critics Award, and several others. He wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s award-winning 2021 movie remake of West Side Story. He co-wrote, along with Stephen Spielberg, the script for The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical film based on Spielberg’s childhood. It was nominated for the 2023 Academy Award for Writing (Original Screenplay). 

Tony Taccone is an adjuct lecturer at the USC School of Dramatic Arts who served as artistic director of Berkeley Rep for 22 years, during which time the theatre produced more than 70 world, American, and West Coast premieres and sent 24 shows to New York, two to London and one to Hong Kong. Most recently he directed The Harder They Come by Suzan Lori-Parks and Kiss My Aztec, which he co-wrote with John Leguizamo. He has directed new work by Tony Kushner, Julia Cho, Lemony Snicket, Culture Clash, David Edgar, Danny Hoch, Sarah Jones, Carrie Fisher, and Itamar Moses. Two of his shows, Continental Divide and Tiny Kushner, transferred to London, and three have landed on Broadway: Bridge & Tunnel, Wishful Drinking, and Latin History for Morons. Prior to working at Berkeley Rep, Tony served as artistic director of Eureka Theatre, where he commissioned Tony Kushner’s legendary Angels in America and co-directed the complete work’s world premiere. 

Related events:

Adaptation: From Stage to Screen
A Screening and Discussion of Angels in America, Episode 1
Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7 p.m.
Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108
"For more information, click HERE

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches
A USC School of Dramatic Arts Production
Friday, April 18, through Sunday, April 27, 2025
Sanctuary Theatre
For more information, click HERE

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by the USC School of Dramatic Arts.