There is little doubt that the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award  for Best Play-winning work Angels in America by Tony Kushner is one of the most important plays written in decades if not the last century. A seven hour-experience (separated into two parts: Part One: Millennium Approaches, and Part Two: Perestroika) can be seen over two days or all in one day. The play cleverly weaves together realism with fantasy to create a complex examination of the social, sexual and religious issues facing the country that resonate powerfully today. Set in the 1980s and early 1990s, we see the challenge of the AIDS crisis and how a variety of classic characters, including both fictional and historical figures, face them.

The difficult production is taken on by the fabulous Chicago-based theater company Invictus Theatre Company led by Artistic Director Charles Askenaizer.

Charles joins the conversation as director of the production and is joined by cast members: Grant Carriker (playing Louis Ironson), Joe Bushell (playing Joe Pitt), Anne Trodden (playing Joe’s wife Harper Pitt), Brenden Zweibel (understudy for the role of Prior Walter), and Shane Roberie (understudy for the role of Roy Cohn).

Enjoy the full conversation about the play and the character roles as well as a conversation about the powerful message of the play and where the characters might be today. You can go to Invictus Theatre to get your tickets!