Bryan Goebel

Tony KushnerTony Kushner is one of the greatest contemporary playwrights but calling him just a playwright wouldn’t describe him.

He is also a screenwriter, activist, public intellectual, Jew, gay man, socialist, progressive and on. His politics are firmly tied to his art, writes theater scholar James Fisher in his fascinating study of Kushner’s work, "The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope.”

“He believes that good politics can produce good aesthetics and, as always, he remains alert on the raw edges of contemporary life and those pressure points of history that relate to our current dilemmas.”

Kushner’s masterpiece, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” won the playwright a Pulitzer Prize. He has since produced a number of important works for the theater, and most recently for film.

In this wide-ranging interview, Kushner touches on the current struggle for LGBT rights, gay marriage, divisions in the LGBT community, the state of American theater, the writing process and married life. The interview was conducted in Kushner’s tiny office in Manhattan. Airing the week of November 26th on This Way Out.