r e s k u o c o r r a B

M n

e n a w o O J

Wednesday, February 21, 2018, 8pm Zellerbach Hall Tony Kushner and The Lincoln Legacy: The Man and His Presidency with Prof. Brian DeLay, UC Berkeley Department of History

Tony Kushner was born in New York City in Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He film of Angels in America , and Steven Spiel - is best known for his two-part epic, Angels in berg’s Munich . In 2012 he wrote the screenplay America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes . for Spielberg’s movie Lincoln . His screenplay was Kushner’s other plays include A Bright Room nominated for an Academy Award and won the Called Day , Slavs! , Hydrotaphia , Homebody/ New York Film Critics Circle Award, Boston Kabul , and Caroline, or Change , the musical for Society of Film Critics Award, Chicago Film which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by Critics Award, and several other honors. Kush - composer Jeanine Tesori. Kushner has trans - ner’s books include But the Giraffe: A Curtain lated and adapted Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion , Raising and Brundibar: the Libretto , with illus - S.Y. Ansky’s The Dybbuk , Bertolt Brecht’s The trations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Sendak: 1980 to the Present ; and Wrestling with Her Children , and the English-language libretto Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to for the children’s opera Brundibár by Hans the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict , co-edited with

Cal Performances’ 2017 –18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alisa Solomon. His recent work includes a col - sugar barons, Teddy Roosevelt, and assorted con lection of one-act plays entitled Tiny Kushner , men, is another history lesson and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capi - in Americana as only Vowell can tell it—with talism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures . brainy wit and droll humor. In addition, a revival of Angels in America ran examines the New off-Broadway at the Signature Theater and England Puritans and their journey to and im - won the Lucille Lortel Award for Out stand ing pact on America. She studies John Winthrop’s Revival in 2011. 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity” Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for and the bloody story that resulted from the be - Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, lief in Amer ican exceptionalism. And she also three Obie Awards, an Arts Award from the traces the relationship of Winthrop, Massachu - American Academy of Arts and Letters, a setts’ first governor, and Roger Williams, the PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Spirit of Justice Award Calvinist minister who founded Rhode Island— from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and an unlikely friendship that was emblematic of Defenders, a Cultural Achievement Award from the polar extremes of the American foundation. the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, Throughout she reveals how American history a Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime can show up in the most unexpected places in achievement, the 2012 National Medal of Arts, our modern culture, often in poignant ways. and the 2015 Lifetime Achievement in the Vowell’s book is a Amer ican Theater Award, among many others. haunting and surprisingly hilarious road trip to Caroline, or Change , produced at the National tourist sites devoted to the murders of presi - Theatre of Great Britain, received the Evening dents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. She Standard Award, the London Drama Critics’ examines what these acts of political violence Circle Award, and the Olivier Award for Best reveal about our national character and our Musical. In September 2008, Tony Kushner contemporary society. became the first recipient of the Steinberg Dis - She is also the author of two essay collec - tinguished Playwright Award, the largest theater tions, The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Take the award in the US. He is the subject of a docu - Cannoli . Her first book, Radio On , is her year- mentary film, Wrestling with Angels: Play wright long diary of listening to the radio in 1995. She Tony Kushner , made by the Oscar-winning film - was guest editor for The Best American Non - maker Freida Lee Mock. He lives in Manhattan required Reading 2017 . with his husband, Mark Harris. Vowell was a contributing editor for the pub - lic radio show from 1996 – Sarah Vowell is ’ bestselling 2008, where she produced numerous commen - author of seven nonfiction books on American taries and documentaries and toured the coun - history and culture. By examining the connec - try in many of the program’s live shows. She was tions between the American past and present, one of the original contributors to McSweeney’s , she offers personal, often humorous accounts of also participating in many of the quarterly’s everything from presidents and their readings and shows. She has been a columnist to colonial religious fanatics, as well as thoughts for Salon.com, Time, and San Francisco Weekly , on American Indians, utopian dreamers, pop and is a contributing op-ed writer for the New music, and the odd cranky cartographer. Her York Times . most recent book is entitled Lafayette in the Vowell has made numerous appearances on Somewhat United States . the Late Show with David Letterman , Late Night Vowell’s book Unfamiliar Fishes is the in - with O’Brien, and with triguing history of our 50th state, , an - . She is the voice of teen superhero nexed in 1898. Replete with a cast of beguiling in ’s Academy Award- and often tragic characters, including an over - winning , a Animation thrown Hawaiian queen, whalers, missionaries, Studios film.

B PLAYBILL