Tony Kushner & Sarah Vowell Lincoln Discussion At The Town Hall Postponed

Pulitzer Prize winning author Tony Kushner and best-selling author Sarah Vowell in conversation about Lincoln's Legacy on Thursday, March 5 at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street) has been postponed until the fall (before the Presidential selection), due to a scheduling conflict. Full ticket refunds will be available at the point of purchase.

Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner and bestselling author and radio personality Sarah Vowell meet for a conversation about Abraham Lincoln, reflecting on his leadership and legacy and the challenges of American democracy in his time and ours. Well known for his 1993 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, Kushner later wrote the screenplay for Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. Vowell has written widely about American history and culture, including in her books Assassination Vacation-with a section about Lincoln-and her most recent Lafayette in the Somewhat United States.

For tickets and information once the date has been rescheduled, please visit www.thetownhall.org or call 800-982-2787.

Tony Kushner was born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He is best known for his two-part epic, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Kushner's 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. In 2012 he wrote the screenplay for Spielberg's movie Lincoln. His screenplay 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 other honors. Kushner's books include But the Giraffe: A Curtain Raising and Brundibar: The Libretto, 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. His recent work includes a collection of one-act plays entitled Tiny Kushner, and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. In addition, a revival of Angels in America ran off-Broadway at the Signature Theater and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival in 2011. Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a Cultural Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, a Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement, the 2012 National Medal of Arts, and the 2015 Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater Award, among many others. Caroline, or Change, produced at The National Theatre of Great Britain, received the Evening Standard Award, the London Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. In September 2008, Tony Kushner became the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the largest theater award in the US. He is the subject of a documentary film, "Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner", made by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Sarah Vowell is the New York Times' bestselling author of seven nonfiction books on American history and culture. By examining the connections between the American past and present, she offers personal, often humorous accounts of everything from presidents and their assassins to colonial religious fanatics, as well as thoughts on American Indians, utopian dreamers, pop music and the odd cranky cartographer. Her most recent book is entitled Lafayette in the Some- what United States.
Vowell's book, Unfamiliar Fishes is the intriguing history of our 50th state, Hawaii, annexed in 1898. Replete with a cast of beguiling and often tragic characters, including an overthrown Hawaiian queen, whalers, missionaries, sugar barons, Teddy Roosevelt and assorted con men, Unfamiliar Fishes is another history lesson in Americana as only Vowell can tell it - with brainy wit and droll humor. The Wordy Shipmates examines the New England Puritans and their journey to and impact on America. She studies John Winthrop's 1630 sermon "A Model of Christian Charity" and the bloody story that resulted from American exceptionalism. And she also traces the relationship of Winthrop, Massachusetts' first governor, and Roger Williams, the Calvinist minister who founded Rhode Island - an unlikely friendship that was emblematic of the polar extremes of the American foundation. Throughout she reveals how American history can show up in the most unexpected places in our modern culture, often in poignant ways. Her book Assassination Vacation is a haunting and surprisingly hilarious road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Vowell examines what these acts of political violence reveal about our national character and our contemporary society. She is also the author of two essay collections, The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Take the Cannoli. Her first book Radio On, is her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995. She was guest editor for The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017. Vowell was a contributing editor for the public radio show This American Life from 1996- 2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program's live shows. She was one of the original contributors to McSweeney's, also participating in many of the quarterly's readings and shows. She has been a columnist for Salon.com, Time, San Francisco Weekly, and is a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times. Vowell has made numerous appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She is the voice of teen superhero Violet Parr in Brad Bird's Academy Award-winning The Incredibles, and its sequel, Incredibles 2, from Pixar Animation Studios. Vowell was the president of the board of 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6-18 in Brooklyn, from its founding in 2004 until 2014. She is still a member of its advisory board, along with its sister organization in Los Angeles, 826LA.