Ithaca College

Members of the audience will get to listen in on “An Interview with Tony Kushner” as the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright sits down for a conversation with an Ithaca College faculty member on Monday, Feb. 21. The free public presentation will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Ford Hall, Whalen Center.

Kushner is best known for his epic two-part play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” the story of two couples whose relationships are disintegrating, set in the 1980s against a backdrop of greed, conservatism, sexual politics and the discovery of an awful new disease: AIDS.

Kushner will be interviewed by Claire Gleitman, professor and chair of the Department of English, who has been teaching an honors seminar on Kushner and “Angels in America” this semester. She is intimately familiar with the work, having brought a group of students to see the original Broadway production the very week that it first opened.

“I hope to ask him a series of questions about ‘Angels in America,’ because that is his most widely known work, but I’ll also ask him questions about his more recent work, including a new play of his that is scheduled to open in New York City in March,” said Gleitman. “I hope the audience will leave the interview knowing a great deal more about Kushner’s influences, his literary and political preoccupations, and his sense of what theatre at its best can do in and for the world.”

Audience members will have the opportunity to ask their own questions as well after the formal interview. Kushner will also sign copies of his books following the presentation.