Graduating class presents Angels In America

Third year students’ graduating class production from the Faculty of Creative Arts this year will feature Angels in America.

Written by Tony Kushner the play will run from Thursday 29 October to Saturday 31 October at the PACT Theatre, 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville.

The two-part play includes “Millennium Approaches” directed by Tim Maddock and “Perestroika” directed by Christopher Ryan.

Part one of the play begins at 6pm with part two from 8.45pm. A dinner break is held between the two parts with patrons advised to bring a picnic dinner.

The internationally acclaimed and iconic Angels in America, subtitled, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, is set in New York City in the mid eighties during the Reagan administration, and just as the AIDS epidemic started to peak. It is widely regarded as a landmark work of theatre as well as a significant meditation on gay life, politics and religion in America.

Epic in scope, Angels unfolds through multiple, often simultaneous storylines that invoke the fantastical and the political through the story of two couples whose relationships are disintegrating: a gay couple grappling with AIDS and a closeted Mormon lawyer and his drug addicted wife. Other characters include the real-life right-wing lawyer, Roy Cohn and a steel winged angel.

Angels in America plays out against a familiar backdrop of political greed, religious conservatism and sexual politics, viewed from different characters’ perspectives. Dazzling and kaleidoscopic, Angels has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for best play.

Born in New York in 1956, Tony Kushner is an award-winning American playwright and screenplay writer, renowned for the creation of compelling theatre that inspires and challenges through a combination of startling images and language, charisma, humour and seriousness. In 2008 he won the inaugural Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award (US $200,000). Currently he is working on his second, much anticipated film with Steven Spielberg, based on the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Directors Tim Maddock (“Millennium Approaches”) and Christopher Ryan (“Perestroika”) both bring extensive experience as directors and theatre-makers to this new staging of a landmark production.

Parts 1 AND 2: $30 full, $25 conc., $20.00 FCA students
Parts 1 OR 2: $25 full, $20 Conc. & $18 FCA students
Parts 1 AND 2: $25 both parts (Groups - 10 or more)

Bookings: MCA Tix: 1300 306 776 or here

Credit card and booking fees apply.

For further information contact the School of Music and Drama, Faculty of Creative Arts on 4221 3996.

Last reviewed: 28 October, 2009