F114. The Legacy of Angels in America

A106, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Friday, March 29, 2019
9:00 am to 10:15 am

 

Twenty-five years after Tony Kushner's Angels in America began its ascent into the canon, this panel will look at what this monumental play has to offer readers, students, and audiences in 2019. Is its portrait of an oppressive, right-wing America still relevant? Do its characters feel fresh, or like the very stereotypes they were once meant to subvert? Does its treatment of race and gender stand up to scrutiny? A panel of journalists, academics, and theater-makers debate the Great Work.


Participants

Moderator:

Dan Kois is an editor at Slate. He is the co-author, with Isaac Butler, of The World Only Spins Forward, an oral history of Angels in America, published by Bloomsbury. How to Be a Family, his memoir about parenting around the world, will be published by Little, Brown in 2019.

Brian Eugenio Herrera is Associate Professor of Theater at Princeton University. His first book Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century U.S. Popular Performance was awarded the George Jean Nathan Prize for Dramatic Criticism.

Deborah R. Geis is Professor of English at DePauw University, where she specializes in drama. Her books include Postmodern Theatric(k)s; Suzan-Lori Parks; and the anthologies Considering MAUS and Beat Drama. She is coeditor with Steven F. Kruger of Millennium Approaches: Essays on Angels in America.

Steven W. Thrasher will become the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair at Northwestern University in 2019. He is currently completing his PhD in American Studies at New York University. Thrasher's writing is regularly published in the Guardian, New York Times, BuzzFeed, and Esquire.

Isaac Butler is a writer and theatre director. He is the coauthor, with Dan Kois, of The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America. His writing has appeared in Slate, New York, The Village Voice, American Theatre and others.

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Kansas City, Missouri

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