New Releases by Tony Kushner

Gus Marcantonio, a retired longshoreman, summons his adult children home to the family''s Brooklyn brownstone to discuss his recent decision to commit suicide. With his trademark mix of soaring intellect, searing emotion, and biting wit, legendary playwright Tony Kushner unfurls an epic tale of revolution, radicalism, family, love, sex, politics, real estate, unions and debts both unpaid and unpayable. With sweeping themes as hefty as its title, "IHo" (as it has been nicknamed) explores the dense and vexing issues that stem from the betrayal of a failed ideology and the challenges of family connectedness. This cerebral mammoth of a play asks what is left when the long-held belief systems that construct and inform one''s identity prove to be empty.

This pioneering study of migrant journeys to Britain begins with Huguenot refugees in the 1680s and continues to asylum seekers and east European workers today. Analyzing the history and memory of migrant journeys, covering not only the response of politicians and the public but also literary and artistic representations, then and now, Kushner’s volume sheds new light on the nature and construction of Britishness from the early modern era onwards. It is an essential tool for those wanting to understand why people come to Britain (or are denied entry) and how migrants have been viewed by state and society alike. The journeys covered vary from the famous (including the Empire Windrush in 1948) to the obscure, such as the Volga German transmigrants passing through Britain in the 1870s. While employing a broadly historical approach, Kushner incorporates insights from many other disciplines and employs a comparative methodology to highlight the importance of the symbolic as well as the physical nature of such journeys.

This is the first study to place Jewish refugee movements from Nazism into a wider framework of global forced migration from the late nineteenth through to the twenty first century.

"Dissent is an essential part of keeping democratic societies healthy, and our ability as citizens to voice our opinions is not only our privilege, it is our responsibility. Most importantly, it is a human right, one which must be fervently fought for, protected, and defended. Many of the issues and conflicts visited in the first edition of this book remain vividly present today. They are reminders of how democracy and social change are often incremental, requiring patience, diligence, hope, and the continuing brave voices of designers whose skillful imagery emboldens in the face of struggle. The 160-plus new works in this edition document the Arab Spring, the Obama presidency, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the election of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin’s continuing influence, the Women’s March, the ongoing refugee crises, the environment, and much more. This powerful collection, totaling well over 550 images, stands not only as a testament to the power of imagery, but also as an urgent call to action. This edition includes the original Foreword by Tony Kushner as well as Steven Heller''s interview of Milton Glaser entitled, "Dissenting Conditions.""--provided by Amazon.com.

Philosemitism, Antisemitism and ''the Jews'' both honours and carries on the work of The Rev. Dr. James Parkes (1896-1981), a pioneer in the many different fields involving the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations. The collection is designed to examine both the specific and broader themes of Parkes'' life work in relation to tolerance and intolerance. From antiquity to today, Jews have often been defined as ''aliens''; these essays consider the effects of such legislative and socio-cultural exclusion on the self-definition of the dominant society. Philosemitism, Antisemitism and ''the Jews'' employs an interdisciplinary framework, bringing together the work of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic and Israel, who work in history, theology, political philosophy, legal theory and literary studies. Eminent historians and theorists of tolerance and intolerance, including Gavin Langmuir, David Theo Goldberg, Norman Solomon and Tony Kushner, are joined by younger scholars researching new developments in the field.

We Europeans is the first book-length study of the original mass observation project. It is also the first detailed historical study of the formation of ordinary people''s ''racial'' attitudes in Britain. Drawing upon historical, literary, cultural and anthropological approaches, this book examines the sources of cultural identity in Britain in the twentieth century, and how these were shaped through the influences of family, education, and everyday ''high'' and ''low'' culture. The examination focuses on the archives of the British social-anthropological organization Mass-Observation, and is the first detailed history of it to be published. Founded in the 1930s by poets, psychoanalysts, surrealists, and sociologists, among others, the purpose of the organization was to create an anthropology of the British people by the ''natives'' themselves, through the use of diaries, directives and special surveys. The organization was active from 1937 to 1951, then revived in the 1980s, when a new group of Mass-Observers were recruited to keep diaries and respond to directives. Both the historical archive of Mass-Observation and the more recent material provide fascinating insight into the everyday lives and formation of identities of ordinary people in Britain. Kushner places the material from these archives in the context of other contemporary writings; through them he explores grassroots identities in Britain in relation to the outside world, especially Europe but also the former Empire and the USA. This study will be of interest to scholars of sociology, cultural studies, literary studies and history who are particularly interested in ''race'', race relations, immigration and cultural difference.

"ANGELS IN AMERICA has proved to be a watershed drama, the most lyrical and ambitious augury of an era since Tennessee Williams''s The Glass Menagerie." John Lahr, The New Yorker "The most influential American play of the last two decades." Patrick Healy, The New York Times "Daring and dazzling! The most ambitious American play of our time: an epic that ranges from earth to heaven; focuses on politics, sex and religion; transports us to Washington, the Kremlin, the South Bronx, Salt Lake City and Antarctica; deals with Jews, Mormons, WASPs, blacks; switches between realism and fantasy, from the tragedy of AIDS to the camp comedy of drag queens to the death or at least absconding of God." Jack Kroll, Newsweek "The greatest American play of the waning years of the twentieth century." Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

"ANGELS IN AMERICA has proved to be a watershed drama, the most lyrical and ambitious augury of an era since Tennessee Williams''s The Glass Menagerie." John Lahr, The New Yorker "The most influential American play of the last two decades." Patrick Healy, The New York Times "Daring and dazzling! The most ambitious American play of our time: an epic that ranges from earth to heaven; focuses on politics, sex and religion; transports us to Washington, the Kremlin, the South Bronx, Salt Lake City and Antarctica; deals with Jews, Mormons, WASPs, blacks; switches between realism and fantasy, from the tragedy of AIDS to the camp comedy of drag queens to the death or at least absconding of God." Jack Kroll, Newsweek "The greatest American play of the waning years of the twentieth century." Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

"As a title, TINY KUSHNER sounds like a joke, and it is, of sorts, a self-deprecating acknowledgment by the playwright Tony Kushner that he generally writes long. His most famous work, ANGELS IN AMERICA, began as a commission for a 90-minute play with three characters and ended up as a two-part extravaganza clocking in at more than seven hours ... The new work consists of five one-act playlets that feature both fictional characters and those borrowed from real life - including Dr Arnold Hutschnecker, who was Richard M Nixon''s psychiatrist. Two plays have therapy sessions in them, actually. Three have dead people as characters. One takes place on the moon. All five, however, resonate on the subject of America and the moral complexities created for its citizens by its various advantages in the world, a theme that reaches a climax in ONLY WE WHO GUARD THE MYSTERY SHALL BE UNHAPPY. Set just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and written out of fury at the Bush administration''s rush to war, it posits Laura Bush reading to a class of dead Iraqi children. Essentially a monologue (it was published by The Nation), it portrays a first lady wrestling with her conscience and betraying the agony of perpetual self-justification ... Individually and even collectively, the five entries here are snacks in the Kushner canon. However, that doesn''t make them nonnourishing or the evening unsatisfying; Mr Kushner''s fierce liberal conscience (he''s Arthur Miller''s heir, in that regard), colossally fanciful imagination and virtuosic gift for composing verbal arias are too much in evidence for that." -Bruce Weber, The New York Times

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes includes Part One, Millennium Approaches and Part Two, Perestroika “Glorious. A monumental, subversive, altogether remarkable masterwork…Details of specific catastrophes may have changed since this Reagan-era AIDS epic won the Pulitzer and the Tony, but the real cosmic and human obsessions—power, religion, sex, responsibility, the future of the world—are as perilous, yet as falling-down funny, as ever.” –Linda Winer, Newsday "A vast, miraculous play... provocative, witty and deeply upsetting... a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama." - Frank Rich, New York Times "A victory for theater, for the transforming power of the imagination to turn devastation into beauty." - John Lahr, New Yorker “An enormously impressive work of the imagination and intellect, a towering example of what theater stretched to its full potential can achieve.” -Philadelphia Inquirer "Angels in America is the finest drama of our time, speaking to us of an entire era of life and death as no other play within memory. It ranks as nothing less than one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century." - John Heilpern, New York Observer “Some playwrights want to change the world. Some want to revolutionize theater. Tony Kushner is that rarity of rarities: a writer who has the promise to do both.” -New York Times This new edition of Tony Kushner''s masterpiece is published with the author''s recent changes and a new introduction in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its original production. One of the most honored American plays in history, Angels in America was awarded two Tony Awards for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was made into an Emmy Award-winning HBO film directed by Mike Nichols. This two-part epic, subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," has received hundreds of performances worldwide in more than twenty-six languages. Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Anglo-Jewry since 1066: Place, locality and memory is a study of the history and memory of Anglo-Jewry from medieval times to the present and is the first to explore the construction of identities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in relation to the concept of place. The introductory chapters provide a theoretical overview focusing on the nature of local studies then moves into a chronological frame, starting with medieval Winchester, moving to early modern Portsmouth and then chapters covering the evolution of Anglo-Jewry from emancipation to the twentieth century. Emphasis is placed on the impact on identities resulting from the complex relationship between migration (including transmigration) and settlement of minority groups. Drawing upon a wide range of approaches, including history, cultural and literary studies, geography, Jewish and ethnic and racial studies, Kushner uses extensive sources including novels, poems, art, travel literature, autobiographical writing, official documentation, newspapers and census data. This book will appeal to scholars interested in Jewish studies and British history

This is a study of the history of global refugee movements over the 20th century, ranging from east European Jews fleeing Tsarist oppression at the turn of the century to asylum seekers from the former Zaire and Yugoslavia. Recognizing that the problem of refugees is a universal one, the authors emphasize the human element which should be at the forefront of both the study of refugees and responses to them.

Tony Kushner''s Homebody/Kabul is the most remarkable play in a decade...without a doubt the most important of our time.''''--John Heilpern, New York Observer In Homebody/Kabul, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America, has turned his penetrating gaze to the arena of global politics to create this suspenseful portrait of a dangerous collision between cultures. Written before 9/11, this play premiered in New York in December 2001 and has had subsequent highly successful productions in London, Providence, Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. This version incorporates all the playwright''s changes and is now the definitive version of the text.

Maurice Sendak ranks as one of the best-known & most respected children''s book artists in the world. However, his oeuvre includes much more than picture books. Tracing Sendak''s life & work from 1980 to the present, this richly illus. vol. is filled with projects in various mediums, both inside & outside the children''s book arena. Reproduced here are lavish set & costume designs for a number of theatrical & dance productions, from The Nutcracker” to The Magic Flute” to The Love for Three Oranges.” Also represented is artwork for numerous posters, CD covers, book jackets, & adult books, as well as children''s picture books. A singular portrait of a man with burning passion, acute sympathy, & a hunger for beauty.”

Despite the massive literature on the Holocaust, our understanding of it has traditionally been influenced by rather unsophisticated early perspectives and silence. This book summarizes and criticizes the existing scholarship on the subject and suggests new ways by which we can approach its study. It addresses the use of victim testimony and asks important questions: What function does recording the past serve for the victim? What do historians want from it? Are these two perspectives incompatible? It also examines the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and compares them to those responsible for other acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the early years of the twentieth century. In addition, it looks at the bystanders--examining the complexity and ambiguity at the heart of contemporary reaction.

“Caroline is a breakthrough—a story so grounded in the ordinary details of life that it almost seems to have discovered a new genre.” –Richard Zoglin, Time “Acute, smart and witty: a telling snapshot focusing with sharp clarity on characters captured at a fraught turning point in history—a culture’s and a family’s.” –Charles Isherwood, Variety “Thrilling. You’ve never seen anything quite like Caroline, or Change and likely won’t again anytime soon. There’s never a moment that the part-pop, part-opera, part-musical-theater score Jeanine Tesori has conjured up doesn’t ideally match Tony Kushner’s meticulously chosen words with clarion precision.” –Matthew Murray, talkinbroadway.com “A monumental achievement in American musical theater. Joyful, wholly successful, immensely moving, told with abundant wit and generosity of heart.” –John Helipern, New York Observer Louisiana, 1963: A nation reeling from the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy assassination. Caroline, a black maid, and Noah, the son of the Jewish family she works for, struggle to find an identity for their friendship after Noah''s stepmother, unable to give Caroline a raise, tells Caroline that she may keep the money Noah leaves in his pockets. Through their intimate story, this beautiful musical portrays the changing rhythms of a nation. Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori have created a story that addresses contemporary questions of culture, community, race and class through the lens and musical pulse of the 1960s.

Dramatizes the effects of AIDS on the United States through the experiences of lawyer Roy Cohn, a Mormon couple, and a young man called Prior Walter.

"In a eminently playable, witty adaptation by Tony Kushner, The Illusion comes across as downright entertaining, not an adjective anyone who reads Corneille in college is likely to expect. Unlike his better known plays, which have heroic subjects, The Illusion is concerned with domestic matters the alienation of parents from children, marital infidelity. While it is serious about these subjects, it puts them in an unusual context: A father has consulted a magician about his estranged son, and the magician shows him scenes from his son''s life... The comedy is elegant, full of depth."--Howard Kissel, Daily News.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Angels in America" presents a major collection of short plays written over the past few yeas.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Angels in America" presents a major collection of short plays written over the past few yeas.

Everyone knows that Bertolt Brecht was one of the great twentieth-century innovators in theater -- the equivalent in his art of a Picasso or Stravinsky -- but the playwright was also a dazzling writer of stories as well as a lifelong poet. In Collected Stories, which includes the prize-winning "The Monster" and the fragmentary memoir "Life Story of the Boxer Samson-Korner", fans will find the same directness, lack of affectation, and wry humor that characterize his plays. The new edition of Brecht''s Selected Poems includes both Brecht''s best-known poems, many of which later made their way into his plays, as well as some that have never before been published in this country. For his new adaptation of The Goad Person of Setzuan, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner Tony Kushner commissioned a literal translation, which he then refined as any translator would, but with the flair of an innate dramatist.

The premier American playwright of this decade speaks out about art, sexuality, and social justice

Considered by many to be the greatest Yiddish drama, ''A dybbuk'' recounts the tale of a wealthy man''s daughter who is possessed by the spirit of her dead beloved.

In this moving novel set in a Greek village in 1942, the corpses of disappeared men wash ashore. The village women claim the bodies as husbands and fathers, even though their faces are unrecognizable. A tug of war ensues between the local police, who insist the women cannot identify their loved ones, and the women, who demand the right to bury their dead. Their standoff becomes a struggle for dignity and honor against the forces of fascism. First published in 1983 and anticipating some of the themes of his award-winning play Death and the Maiden, Widows is Ariel Dorfmans eloquent tribute to those who have perished under totalitarian regimes. This is a classic parable of individual courage in the face of oppression from a literary grandmaster (Time). Lyrical and even elegiac ... Dorfman gives flesh to a human rights issue of our time. Chicago Tribune Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.