Guthrie Director Joe Dowling announced that Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner has been commissioned by the Guthrie to
write a new play. Tentatively titled The
Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,
Kushner's Guthrie commission will premiere on the McGuire Proscenium Stage in
the spring of 2009, as part of the Guthrie's 2008-2009 season.
Born in New York City in
1956, and raised in Lake Charles,
Louisiana, 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;
and Caroline or Change, the musical
for which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by 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 books include "Brundibar," with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; "The Art
of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present;" and "Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses
to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict," co-edited with Alisa Solomon.
Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an
Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Oscar nomination, an Arts
Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Award
for a Mid-Career Playwright, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian
Advocates and Defenders, and a Cultural Achievement Award from The National
Foundation for Jewish Culture, among many others. Most recently, Caroline or
Change, produced in the autumn of 2006 at the Royal National Theatre of Great
Britain, received the Evening Standard Award, the London Drama Critics' Circle
Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. He is the subject of a
documentary film, Wrestling with Angels:
Playwright Tony Kushner, made by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee
Mock. He is currently working on a screenplay about Abraham Lincoln. He lives
in Manhattan
with his husband, Mark Harris.
The Guthrie gratefully acknowledges the generosity of Bill
and Penny George and the George Family Foundation in their roles as Executive Producers of the
new Tony Kushner play commission.
The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center
for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The
Guthrie is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature,
developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next
generation of theater artists. Led by Director Joe Dowling since 1995, the
Guthrie recently moved to their new three-theater home on the banks of the
Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
The Guthrie is located at 818 South 2nd Street (at Chicago Avenue), in
downtown Minneapolis.
To purchase tickets or season subscriptions call the Guthrie Box Office between
10 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily at 612.377.2224 or toll-free 877.44.STAGE. For more
information, or to purchase tickets online, visit www.guthrietheater.org.
