Story/Teller Arts: Tony Kushner on The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures with Isaac Butler

Featuring

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  Tony Kushner

  Tony Kushner

  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 Pierre Corneille’s The Illusion, S. Y. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan and Mother Courage and Her Children, and the English language libretto for the opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplay for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America, and the screenplays for Steven Spielberg’s Munich, Lincoln, West Side Story, and The Fabelmans, the last of which was co-written with Mr. Spielberg. Mr. Kushner’s 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. Among other honors, Mr. Kushner was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

  
  

  Photo Credit: Angela Brown

  
  
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  Isaac Butler

  Isaac Butler

  Isaac Butler is the author of The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act, winner of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction. He is also the co-author, with Dan Kois, of The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America, a Stonewall Honor Book. His writing has appeared in Slate, the Guardian, the New York Times, T magazine, the New Yorker, American Theatre and others and he co-hosts Working, a podcast about the creative process, for Slate.

  
  

  Photo Credit: Adalena Kavanagh

  
  
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  F. Murray Abraham

  F. Murray Abraham

  F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 80 films including Amadeus, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor, as well as Golden Globe and L.A. Film Critics Awards. Abraham’s other films include The Name of the Rose, Finding Forrester, Scarface, The Ritz, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inside Llewyn Davis, How to Train Your Dragon 3, House of Geraniums, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Where Love Begins, Robin Hood, and Lady and the Tramp where he sang “This is the Night, Bella Notte”.

  Mr. Abraham recently starred in the second season of HBO’s The White Lotus, for which he received an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Mr. Abraham can currently be seen in the HBO limited series The White House Plumbers as “Judge John Sirica.” Previously, Mr. Abraham was a series regular on Homeland (2 Emmy nominations), and had memorable appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mythic Quest, Marco Polo, Louis C.K., Shakespeare Uncovered and Chimerica for the BBC. Additionally, he was featured in Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed Netflix anthology series, 10 After Midnight in the role of ‘Dr. Winters’.

  A veteran of the stage, F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 90 plays, among them Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” (Obie Award), “Trumbo”, “Standup Shakespeare”, the Italian tour of “Notturno Pirandelliano”, Susan Stroman’s “A Christmas Carol”, the musical “Triumph Of Love”, “A Month In The Country”, the title roles in “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, “Richard III”, “The Merchant of Venice in rep with “The Jew of Malta” which he did at Stratford on Avon with the RSC, “The Seagull”, “Oedipus Rex”, “Creon”, “Angels In America” (Broadway), Arthur Miller’s last play “The Ride Down Mt. Morgan”, “Waiting For Godot”, “The Caretaker”, “The Ritz”, “Sexual Perversity In Chicago”, “Duck Variations”, “A Life In The Theatre”, “Paper Doll”, “The Threepenny Opera”, “The Mentor”, and in Terrence McNally’s “It’s Only A Play” (Drama Desk Award nomination). He made his LA debut in Ray Bradbury’s “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” and his NY debut as a Macy’s Santa Claus, soon thereafter to Broadway in “The Man In The Glass Booth”, directed by Harold Pinter.

  Mr. Abraham’s book ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Actors On Shakespeare,’ is published by Faber & Faber. He is proud to be the spokesman for The MultiFaith Alliance.

  Honors include The Moscow Art Theatre Stanislavski Award, The Sir John Gielgud Award for Excellence in Shakespeare, Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a member of The New York Theater Hall of Fame

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  Linda Emond

  Linda Emond

  Linda Emond is a three-time Tony nominee, whose Broadway credits include Death of a Salesman opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Mike Nichols. Her work with Tony Kushner has involved his three initial productions of Homebody/Kabul, two initial productions of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures and the 2019 production of his rewritten version of A Bright Room Called Day. Recent TV and film work includes Only Murders in the Building, The Patient opposite Steve Carell, Causeway opposite Jennifer Lawrence, Succession, and, currently airing, Death and Other Details.

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  James Cusati Moyer

  James Cusati Moyer

  James Cusati Moyer (Dustin) Broadway: Slave Play (Tony Nomination Best Featured Actor in a Play), Six Degrees of Separation. Off-Broadway: Slave Play (New York Theatre Workshop), Nijinsky in World Premiere of Fire and Air by Terrence McNally (Classic Stage Company); The Devil in The Soldier’s Tale (Carnegie Hall). Regional: Yale Repertory Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre Festival. Film: Black Adam (DC Comics), Maestro (Netflix) False Positive (A24) Television: “Inventing Anna,” “The Calling,” “Evil,” “Prodigal Son,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “The Path,” “Red Oaks,” “Blue Bloods,” “Time After Time.” Training: Yale School of Drama.

  
  

  Photo Credit: Emil Cohen

  
  
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  Ben Shenkman

  Ben Shenkman

  Ben Shenkman first met Tony Kushner while a grad student at NYU’s MFA Acting program, where he played Roy Cohn in a pre-Broadway workshop of “Perestroika.” He later went on to play Louis in San Francisco’s ACT production of “Angels In America,” and ultimately in the HBO movie version.

  He is familiar to TV audiences from seven seasons of “Billions,” the final season of “The Good Fight,” Shondaland’s ABC series “For The People,” USA’s “Royal Pains,” and HBO’s “The Night Of.” Movie credits include “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Blue Valentine,” “Then She Found Me,” and “Pi.”

  On Broadway, Ben appeared in Larry David’s comedy “Fish In The Dark,” “Sight Unseen,” and “Proof.”

  
  

  Photo Credit: Jenna Stern