A Bright Room Called Day Revisited

by Tony Kushner

Overview

In 1932, Agnes, an actress in Weimar Germany, and her cadre of passionate, progressive friends, are torn between protest, escape, and survival as the world they knew crumbles around them. Her story is interrupted by an American woman enraged by the cruelty of the Reagan administration, and a new character grappling with the anxiety, distraction, hope, and hopelessness of an artist facing the once unthinkable rise of authoritarianism in modern America. Funny, brilliant, and devastating, this new version of A Bright Room Called Day revisits an epic work that takes a piercing look at the vulnerability of American democracy, and demands to know: when the devil takes up residence in your country…will you act?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781559369411
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	11/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook

About the Author

Tony Kushner’s plays include A Bright Room Called Day, Angels in America, Parts One and Two, Slavs!, Homebody/Kabul, the musical Caroline, or Change and the opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, both with composer Jeanine Tesori. He has adapted and translated Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother Courage and Her Children and the English-language libretto for the opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America, and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak, The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present and Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. 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, among other honors. In 2013, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Editorial Reviews

Kushner and his longtime collaborator Oskar Eustis…have struck an engaging balance that shifts our attentions from the head to the heart to the funny bone”

TheaterMania

"There's so much wonderful Kushnerian text in Bright Room that your ear and mind will be delighted."

New York Magazine

"There is much blazing intelligence and imagination on display... there's no doubting that A Bright Room Called Day is the work of a major playwright."

Hollywood Reporter

"Mr. Kushner is such a strong writer that he is able to instill in his characters a fluidity of speech that is poetic without being flowery, smart without being condescending, and witty without being focused on landing an obvious punchline."

Talkin' Broadway

It is a privilege to spend three hours in the company of such an invigorating, morally serious intellect.”

Time Out New York