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Tony Kushner’s epic drama of gay life in mid-1980s America
Story:
Joe and Harper Pitt are an attractive young Mormon couple who moved from Utah to Brooklyn for his job as law clerk to a conservative judge. Harper is a Valium addict; Joe is a closeted gay man. Meanwhile, Prior Walter has been diagnosed with AIDS and his longtime lover, Louis Ironson, can’t cope with caring for a gravely ill partner. At St. Vincent’s Hospital, an African American nurse known as Belize (who happens to be Prior’s previous lover) reluctantly cares for notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, an AIDS patient who enters the hospital claiming to be suffering from liver cancer. Cohn receives ghostly visitations from Ethel Rosenberg, the woman he helped send to the electric chair for spying. The final character is an angel who (literally) crashes through Prior’s ceiling during an illness-induced vision.
One of the many theatrical devices in Angels is that each of the eight main actors has one or several other minor roles in the play. For example, the actor playing the nurse, Emily, also plays the Angel, Sister Ella Chapter (a real estate agent), and a homeless woman. This doubling and tripling of roles encourages the audience to consider the elasticity of, for example, gender and sexual identities.
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Best Play
Best Actor in a Play - Ron Leibman
Best Featured Actor in a Play - Stephen Spinella
Best Direction of a Play
Best Featured Actor in a Play - Joe Mantello
Best Featured Actress in a Play - Kathleen Chalfant
Best Featured Actress in a Play - Marcia Gay Harden
Best Scenic Design in a Play
Best Lighting Design
Best Play
Outstanding Actor in a Play - Ron Leibman
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Stephen Spinella
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Joe Mantello
Outstanding Director of a Play
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - David Marshall Grant
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play - Kathleen Chalfant
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play - Marcia Gay Harden
Outstanding Lighting Design
Best Revival of a Play
Best Actor in a Play - Andrew Garfield
Best Featured Actor in a Play - Nathan Lane
Best Featured Actress in a Play - Susan Brown
Best Featured Actress in a Play - Denise Gough
Best Direction of a Play
Best Original Score
Best Scenic Design in a Play
Best Costume Design in a Play
Best Sound Design of a Play
Best Lighting Design in a Play
Revival of a Play
Outstanding Actor in a Play - Andrew Garfield
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Nathan Lane
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - James McArdle
Outstanding Director of a Play
Music in a Play
Outstanding Puppet Design - Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes
Outstanding Revival of a Play (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Outstanding Actor in a Play Andrew Garfield
Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play - Nathan Lane
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play - Denise Gough
Outstanding Director of a Play
Outstanding Lighting Design (Play or Musical)