Signature Theatre Company (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) is pleased to announce casting for the first New York revival of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning epic work, ANGELS IN AMERICA: A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES. The production will be directed by Michael Greif. ANGELS IN AMERICA is the first production of Signature's 20th Anniversary season, celebrating the works of Tony Kushner.
ANGELS IN AMERICA will feature
Robin Bartlett (Prelude to a Kiss, "Mad About You") as Hannah Pitt,
Christian Borle (Legally Blonde, Spamalot) as Prior Walter,
Bill Heck (The Orphans' Home Cycle, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale) as Joe Pitt,
Zoe Kazan (The Seagull, A Behanding in Spokane) as Harper Pitt,
Billy Porter (Smokey Joe's Café, Five Guys Named Moe) as Belize,
Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, "Heroes") as Louis Ironson,
Robin Weigert (Noises Off, The Good German, "Deadwood") as The Angel and
Frank Wood (Side Man, August: Osage County) as Roy Cohn.
ANGELS IN AMERICA features scenic design by
Mark Wendland, costume design by
Clint Ramos, lighting design by
Ben Stanton, sound design by
Ken Travis, projection design by
Wendall K. Harrington, original music by
Michael Friedman and fight direction by
Rick Sordelet. Production Stage Manager is
Monica Cuoco and Stage Manager is
Joshua Pilote.
ANGELS IN AMERICA will begin performances on September 14, 2010 at The Peter Norton Space (555 West 42nd Street). Opening night will be October 28, 2010. Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, the two parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA, will begin alternating in repertory from the start of performances. Subscriptions for the Kushner season are sold out.
The production of ANGELS IN AMERICA is made possible by a major grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Through The Signature Ticket Initiative, which seeks to make great theatre accessible to the broadest possible audience, all regularly-priced single tickets ($75) during the initial announced run are underwritten and will be available for $20. The Signature Ticket Initiative continues through Signature's 20th Anniversary Season (2010-2011).
The Signature Ticket Initiative is made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc. Generous support for The Signature Ticket Initiative is provided by
Margot Adams, in memory of
Mason Adams.
ANGELS IN AMERICA was one of the most critically acclaimed and heralded plays of the 1990s and established
Tony Kushner as a major new voice in world theatre.
Frank Rich, The New York Times, praised it as "the most thrilling American play in years". The plays were developed in productions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, before opening on Broadway in 1993. Part One: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES, opened May 4, 1993 at the
Walter Kerr Theatre and Part Two: PERESTROIKA, opened November 23, 1993, also at the
Walter Kerr, with the two parts playing in repertory. Both parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA won Tony Awards in 1993 and 1994 for Best Play and MILLENNIUM APPROACHES won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Kushner adapted the plays for an HBO mini-series, directed by
Mike Nichols, which premiered in 2003 and won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for Best Miniseries.
ANGELS IN AMERICA: A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES is set in late 1985 and early 1986, as the first wave of the AIDS epidemic in America is escalating and
Ronald Reagan has been elected to a second term in the White House. The play's two parts, MILLENNIUM APPROACHES and PERESTROIKA, bring together a young gay man with AIDS (
Christian Borle) and his frightened, unfaithful lover (
Zachary Quinto); a closeted Mormon lawyer (
Bill Heck) and his valium-addicted wife (
Zoe Kazan); the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn (
Frank Wood); an African-American male nurse (
Billy Porter); a Mormon housewife from Utah (
Robin Bartlett); and a steel-winged, prophecy-bearing angel (
Robin Weigert); as well as the ghost of
Ethel Rosenberg, an ancient rabbi, the world's oldest living Bolshevik and a Reagan administration functionary, among many others - all played by a company of eight actors. The lives of these disparate characters intersect, intertwine, collide and are blown apart during a time of heartbreak, reaction and transformation. Ranging from earth to heaven, from the political to the intimate to the visionary and supernatural, ANGELS IN AMERICA is an epic exploration of love, justice, identity and theology, of the difficulty, terror and necessity of change.
Signature Theatre Company's 20th Anniversary season also features the New York premiere of iHo: THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, also directed by
Michael Greif and co-produced with
The Public Theater; and THE ILLUSION, Kushner's freely adapted version of
Pierre Corneille's L'Illusion Comique, directed by Tony Award-winner
Michael Mayer.
The season will also include readings of selected other plays from Tony Kushner's body of work. Plays under consideration include A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY, TINY KUSHNER (A NEW COLLECTION OF ONE ACTS), IT'S AN UNDOING WORLD, OR WHY SHOULD IT BE EASY WHEN IT CAN BE HARD?, THE HENRY BOX BROWN PLAY, HYDRIOTAPHIA, OR THE DEATH OF DR. BrownE and HOMEBODY/KABUL.
Photo credit: Gregory Costanzo
