1. Tony Kushner- Anthony “Tony” Robert Kushner was born in New York City 1956 to two classical musicians. One year later the family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana where Tony spent his childhood. Kushner has clear memories of being gay at age six, and says that growing up gay and Jewish in the Deep South “made him more conscious of his distinctive identity as he might not have in heavily Jewish New York City”. Kushner moved back to New York City to attend Columbia where he got a degree in medieval literature, and later went on to receive a M.F.A. from NYU. Kushner is most famous for his two part play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” which seemed to be an overnight hit when part one opened in 1992. The following year …show more content…
Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who tell him that he is a prophet, but he denies the idea. Louis, distraught about leaving Prior, turns to Joe, who just came out to his mother, Hannah, and left Harper. Hannah coldly tells Joe that he is being ridiculous and decides to move to New York to help settle the matter. There she takes care of Harper and befriends Prior. Joe tells Roy that he cannot go to Washington. Roy, in an upset rage, tells Joe about his intervention with the Ethel Rosenberg trial that ensured her execution. As Roy gets sicker, he has to be put in the hospital. He is being taken care of by Belize, who doesn’t want to take care of Roy because of the kind if immoral person he is. The ghost of Ethel materializes to witness his last days. As he is dying she sings to him, and tells him that he has been disbarred because he has been unethical.
Louis tries to come back to Prior, but prior will not accept his apology. Belize tells Louis about Joe and Roy’s relationship. Louis is disgusted by Roy because of his personal and political history. He confronts Joe about it, they get into a physical alteration, Louis punches Joe, and they never speak
The author of Casey at the Bat classifies the poem as humorous. The author most likely decided this due to the rhyme and irony in the poem. As mentioned before, Casey at the Bat includes humor such as rhyme, examples include the following; "If only Casey could but get a whack at that - we'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.", and "So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, for these seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat." The other example of humor is irony. In the end of Casey at the Bat, Casey strikes out. At first Casey was like a super hero, because he seemed to have super human strength and appeared unable to be defeated. Casey's strength is exaggerated in the following text, "And now the air is shattered
The Killer Angels is a historical novel that recounts the battle of the Civil War, specifically focusing on the Battle of Gettysburg. Set from June 29 to July 3, 1863 and told from the point of view of several soldiers and commanding officers from both sides, Michael Shaara effectively illustrates the sentiments behind the war that tore America in two, from the strategic battle plans to the emotional hardships endured by all.
Warriors Don 't Cry is a memoir written by Melba Pattillo Beals. It is about the author herself as a young girl named Melba, who grew up in a society of segregation. Nine students, including Beals, have the chance to integrate a white school called Central High. Mobs of white people were against it and would harass them and even try to kill them. Three elements used in this memoir are first point of view, character and plot. Furthermore, Warriors Don 't Cry has the theme of courage.
I woke up at John Morris’ house, on his coach. As I knocked a flyaway hair out of my face I noticed my face was wet, with tears, and then it all hit me at once that my Dad and Mrs. Borden were dead. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I heard John Morris ask if I was alright, but that seemed like a completely different world, I responded with a meek okay, so Mr. Morris wouldn’t see me like this. That didn’t work though, I saw his tall shadowy figure ducking under the door frame with tea. As Mr. Morris sat down and put the tea on the coffee table in front of us, I turned my head and quickly wiped the tears from my eyes in hopes he wouldn’t see.
“It takes a warrior to fight a battle and survive. This here is a battle if I’ve ever seen one” (Beals 113). In the novel Warriors Don’t Cry, nine students from Little Rock Arkansas are set out on the battlefield for integration. Melba Pattillo and eight other friends are challenged with starting off the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. The students were signed up and asked to attend the high school in hopes of getting rid of segregation. Although entering high school may seem as easy as signing in and going to class, the test and trials the Little Rock nine went through shows a true test of determination. Comparatively, the “Arab Spring”, a movement of protests in the Middle East, has caused controversy all over the world. Citizens are rebelling against an unfair government in hopes of create a new way of life. Tired of all the disrespect, unjust, and oppressive government Muslims and Middle Easterners have created a battle of their own. While trying to create a better life for themselves, the Little Rock Nine and those involved in the Arab Spring uprisings have stepped on to the battlefield for fair human rights.
June 6, 1952, Harvey Fierstein, the American actor and playwright is birthed to Jacqueline Harriet and Irving Fierstein of Brooklyn, New York. Harvey Fierstein’s screen success came in a few highly acclaimed films: “Mulan”, “Independence Day”, and “Mrs. Doubtfire”, just to name a few. These lists of movies have captured the attention of many, but his initial claim to fame is his playwriting ability. The playwright turned actor began his writing career in high school, where he enrolled in creative writing. It was at this time his frankness for being gay was no secret. He performed in numerous drag events growing up. These events ultimately pushed him into his Broadway success and being an activist for the gay population.
The nation and people were separated and each man fought for what they believed to be right for them. Whether the men sided with the north or south it really did not matter. Whether they believed slavery should be abolished or not, it was not too prevalent in this book. Some men fought for themselves, for their families, to protect their land, and some because it was the morally right and loyal thing to do. Whatever reasons the soldiers decided to fight that day and days subsequently, I am sure they could not have dreamed of the legacy that their heroism and bravery that The Battle of Gettysburg has left in American History. With over 50,000 casualties occurred that occurred over three days of aggressive fighting, the battle was vital turning point in the civil war.
Kushner, Tony. "Angels in America." By Tony Kushner Book (9781854591562). 1993. Web. 01 Mar. 2012. .
Author Steven Seidman writes that “it is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a significant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America “(38). Those that are homosexual tends to tell lies and play deceitful silly games just to appease family, coworkers and a few dear old friends. They feed into the prejudices and fears about homosexuality. In Angels in America, many of the characters are homosexual, and the truth about their sexual preferences comes out. Kushner shows us the difficult struggle that often precedes a gay person’s acceptance of her or his identity, and the ways in which one’s ability to enact this identity is dependent on the acceptance of others.
Strange things began to happen the next couple days. First, Joey was in the living room of Grandma’s house making a jig saw puzzle. He heard the sound of a horses hooves walking slowly on the street then the sound stopped in front of the house and heard someone put something in Grandma’s mail box. Joey heard the horse walk away and a little while later Grandma’s mailbox blew up. Next, Ms. Wilcox’s outhouse was destroyed by a cherry bomb. Then, a dead mouse was found floating in the bottle of milk that was delivered to the front
On a drive on Highway 50, through Nevada to see a real ghost town, Agnes finds a little girl named Rebecca who has been separated by her family who was looking Leister 's gold. The capper of the whole thing is that Agnes saw the whole thing in a dream, but she gets to the Goldberg Hotel and Saloon, she realizes the whole thing was real, especially the inside of her room. She soon finds out that the entire hotel is haunted by all kinds of spirits from past guests; which only serves to make Agnes 's vacation that much more interesting. She wants to find out what happened to the family. She knows with every fiber of her being that it was not just a dream, and that a little girl really did go missing in the night before Agnes showed up. Will they be able to find the missing kid or will a killer (called “The Cutter”) ruin their
On May 4, 2017, the Department of Theatre and Speech at the City College of New York held their annual, "One Act Play Festival," in room 310 at the Compton-Goethals Hall. One play stood out from the others during this festival. That play was "Dos Corazones". This play was directed by Laixsa Mercado.
In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the interconnection of people and events, that might ordinarily be viewed as disconnected or unrelated, is implicitly presented in the characters section. Dual roles are implemented by a playwright that has one actor portraying the roles of two or more characters, with or without thematic intentions. The use of “dual roles” in several scenes of this play can be viewed as a demonstration of Kushner’s effort in maintaining the interconnectedness between characters, communities (i.e. queer, heterosexual, AIDS and political communities) and events to which they are relative. This essay will argue that Kushner’s use of dual role’s effectively interconnects characters, events and their communities that may be seen as usually unrelated. Analysis of four specific characters, Antarctica, Oceania, Australia and Europa, in Act Five, Scene Five of “Perestroika”, will demonstrate the connection of each Act Five, Scene Five character, to the actors main character based on the implicit evidence presented in the actors “primary” and “secondary” roles, the scenes dialogue and the character interactions. As one will see, by implementing dual roles, Kushner is able to expand or preserve the concept of a major character while the actor portrays another character, keeping the audience from having to completely renegotiate their knowledge between what they physically see of new characters and actually use the new context to view triumphs and struggles for a major character.
In 1973, An American Family, a PBS series, featured one of the family’s sons revealing his homosexuality. In 1977, the television show Soap costarred Billy Crystal as an openly gay man. In the 1980s, it became trendy to feature gay and lesbian characters in ensemble casts. If you watch reruns, you can always find the token gay, that is, the really flaming homo or the butch lesbian gym teacher. The motion picture Mannequin, starring Andrew McCarthy and Kim Catrall, featured Meshach Taylor as Hollywood, an eccentric, finger-snapping homosexual.
Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America, comments on a number of social issues of its time; ranging from political to societal. Additionally, it incorporates many concepts discussed in the Modern Condition courses. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Borges, and DeBeauvoir are specifically represented in the play through the characters presented. Kushner uses his characters to convey the ideas of these thinkers in the context of the culture the play takes place in.