- published: 20 May 2014
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Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. He co-authored with Eric Roth the screenplay for the 2005 film Munich, and he wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln, both critically acclaimed movies. For his work, he received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013.
Kushner was born in Manhattan, New York, the son of Sylvia (née Deutscher), a bassoonist, and William David Kushner, a clarinetist and conductor. His family is Jewish, descended from immigrants from Russia/Poland. Shortly after his birth, Kushner's parents moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, the seat of Calcasieu Parish where he spent his childhood. During high school Kushner was active in policy debate. In 1974, Kushner moved to New York to begin his undergraduate college education at Columbia University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Medieval Studies in 1978. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, graduating in 1984. During graduate school, he spent the summers of 1978-1981 directing both early original works (Masque of the Owls and Incidents and Occurrences During the Travels of the Tailor Max) and plays by Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest) starring the children attending the Governor's Program for Gifted Children (GPGC) in Lake Charles.
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American playwright and author of many stage classics. Along with Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller he is considered among the three foremost playwrights in 20th-century American drama.
After years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944), closely reflecting his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). His later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on the short list of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Long Day's Journey into Night and Death of a Salesman.
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work was adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Rachel Anne Maddow (i/ˈmædoʊ/, born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, political commentator, and author. She hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC. Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio. Maddow is the first openly gay anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States. She holds a doctorate in politics from Oxford University.
Asked about her political views by the Valley Advocate, Maddow replied, "I'm undoubtedly a liberal, which means that I'm in almost total agreement with the Eisenhower-era Republican party platform."
Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Her father, Robert B. "Bob" Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and found civilian work as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Her mother, Elaine Maddow (née Gosse), is a school program administrator. She has one older brother, David. Her paternal grandfather was from an Eastern European Jewish family (the original family surname being "Medwedof"), while her paternal grandmother was of Dutch (Protestant) background; her mother, originally from Newfoundland, Canada, is of English and Irish ancestry. Maddow has stated that her family is "very, very Catholic," and she grew up in a community that her mother has described as "very conservative." Maddow was a competitive athlete and participated in three sports in high school: volleyball, basketball, and swimming. Referencing John Hughes films, she has described herself as being "a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl" in high school.
Ivo van Hove (born 28 October 1958, Heist-op-den-Berg) is a Belgian theater director best known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands as well as for his avant garde experimental theater productions on Off-Broadway.
Van Hove began his career as a stage director in 1981, working with plays he had written himself such as Ziektekiemen (Germs) and Geruchten (Rumors). He was artistic manager at AKT, Akt-Vertical and De Tijd, successively. Between 1990 and 2000 he worked as the director of Het Zuidelijk Toneel. Since 2001, van Hove has been general director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam (the Amsterdam Theatre Group). He has coordinated productions at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Holland Festival, Theater der Welt, and the Wiener Festwochen. He has directed companies from Hamburg's Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Stuttgart's Staatstheater, directed Hedda Gabler, The Little Foxes and Scenes from a Marriage at the New York Theatre Workshop and the award winning A View from the Bridge at the Young Vic.
A Savage Chat with Tony Kushner
John Lahr and Tony Kushner On Tennessee Williams
Tony Kushner on the origins of "Angels in America" (May 10, 1993) | Charlie Rose
Tony Kushner On Hillary Clinton And Susan Sarandon | All In | MSNBC
Tony Kushner on Angels in America
DP/30: Lincoln, screenwriter Tony Kushner
PUBLIC FORUM: Tony Kushner & Rachel Maddow
Tony Kushner: Hollywood and Socialism
Lincoln Writer Tony Kushner's Unexpected Advice
Artist Talk: Ivo Van Hove and Tony Kushner