Tony Kushner has won a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, and two Oscar nominations.
But the decorated writer still finds his work to be “very, very difficult.”
“Even after being a professional writer for 40 something years, I still find it very hard to do,” he said.
The playwright takes the stage at the University of Toledo on Tuesday for its annual Edward Shapiro Distinguished Lecture.
Admission is free, and free parking is available in Area 1N off of University Hills Boulevard.
Doors open at 6 p.m., with the lecture starting at 7 p.m. at Doermann Theatre in University Hall, 2925 W. Bancroft St., Toledo.
The lecture, Kushner told The Blade, will range topics from theater, art, literature, and film to politics and “whatever else is of interest.”
The talk will conclude with a Q&A, and will be followed by a free book signing.
UT Professor Joseph Gamble is set to introduce Kushner at the start of the talk. An assistant professor of English, Gamble incorporates Kushner’s work into his “Reading Drama” and “LGBTQ Literature” courses.
“Kushner is really one of the quintessential figures in LGTBQ literature,” Gamble said. “It’s hard to imagine teaching about queer history without his work.”
Kushner’s most popular work is the two-part play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The 1991 play, adapted in 2003 into an HBO miniseries, depicts the AIDS epidemic in the mid-’80s social and political climate.
Gamble said the coronavirus pandemic has shaped how he reads Angels in America, making the “timeless” play feel “really timely again.”
“It’s not only about HIV/AIDS, it’s about larger questions about … what it means to be American,” he said. “What progress means, what it means to move forward, those are questions that I think are never going to go away.
“I think people still seem to find value in it and that makes me very happy,” Kushner said of the play.
Kushner’s scripts, for both stage and screen, stem from things he finds “contradictory or central to the experience of being alive.” He hopes his work stimulates thought and conversation, but is careful not to force opinions on actors or audiences.
“I trust that between what's inside of me and what's inside the story and what's going on in the heads and hearts of the people that are going to be performing it and then watching it,” he said, “certain complicated truths are going to emerge.”
Gamble said people of any background can benefit from hearing from Kushner and reading his work because he’s a “deeply political thinker.”
“We need people who are thinking really hard about what it means to share a world with other people and be a democracy,” he said.
Referencing a time near the midterm elections, Russia at war with Ukraine, and complicated refugee relations, Kushner is excited to hear how Toledoans respond to whatever topics arise during the lecture.
“I, very selfishly, really enjoy visiting a part of the country that I haven't been to,” Kushner said. “There's a lot going on to think about, and I'm excited that I get to leave New York and go to Ohio and see what people are thinking about.”
“What you hope you're sharing is some version of the truth, which is never a singular thing, and never a fixed thing. But in the exchange between myself and my audience … that we discovered something collectively that we didn't really know or knew but hadn't assimilated.”
Contact Sarah Readdean at: sreaddean@theblade.com.
First Published September 19, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
