Scarlet Masque Theatre Journal New Beginnings and Fond Farewells Vol. 1 | Page 21

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University, where he majored in Medieval Studies and began his obsession for New York
theatre. Here he gained some of his most prominent influences for his playwriting like Bertolt
Brecht from his and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, and George Bernard Shaw’s
Heartbreak House. He was late to come into his own in regards to his sexuality and his writing,
first studying directing at New York University and finding his first boyfriend there (to whom Pt. 1
of Angels is dedicated to), still feeling the repercussions of his parents’ deriding comments
about his life (especially his father’s). Fueled by a new creative energy in New York and also
inspired by the psychoanalytic traumas of his childhood, Kushner began his writing career in
earnest after graduate school; his early works showed signs of great rebellion and unabashed
politicalization of social topics that would continue on to his work in Angels in America.
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes was commissioned in 1988 for
the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco by Oskar Eustis. The title of the work itself is a reference
to Shaw’s Heartbreak House, whose full title is Heartbreak House: A Fantasia in the Russian
Manner on English Themes, and like Shaw, Kushner plays around with lofty philosophical
contents through his characters, who muse upon these ideas as openly as Shaw’s characters
but with the hyper-realistic sensibilities of contemporary dramas. “Part One: Millennium
Approaches” was presented first as a workshop in May 1990 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los
Angeles, with a world premiere at the same location in 1992. The play then premiered in
January 1992 in London before finally making its way to New York, opening on Broadway at the
Walter Kerr Theatre on May 4, 1993 directed by George Wolfe. The cast on opening night in
New York included Kathleen Chalfant as Rabbi Chemelwitz/Henry/Hannah Pitt/Ethel
Rosenberg, Ron Leibman as Roy Cohn/Prior 2, David Marshall Grant as Joe Pitt/The Eskimo/
Prior 1, Marcia Gay Harden as Martin Heller/Harper Pitt, Jeffrey Wright as Belize/Mr. Lies, Joe
Mantello (Tony-award and Drama Desk-award winning director and actor) as Louis Ironson,
Stephen Spinella as Prior Walter/Man in the Park, and Ellen McLaughlin as The Woman in the