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Tony Kushner: Book & Lyrics

Dramatist Tony Kushner, best known for his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award®–winning two-part play Angels in America, is one of the most acclaimed playwrights of his generation. Born in Manhattan, Kushner soon moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana with his family, where he grew up in the politically turbulent 1960s— much like young Noah Gellman in Caroline, or Change. Indeed, according to Kushner, Caroline, or Change is “the closest thing to an autobiographical piece [he’s] ever written.”

Kushner attended Columbia University for his undergraduate education, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts in Medieval Studies in 1978. Kushner then attended the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, graduating in 1984 with a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting. His early plays include La Fin de la Baleine: An Opera for the Apocalypse (1983); Yes, Yes, No, No (1985)and A Bright Room Called Day (1985).

In 1988, the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco commissioned Kushner to write a play that confronted the ongoing AIDS crisis. Part one of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes—Millennium Approaches—premiered at the Eureka Theatre in 1991 to sold-out crowds and critical acclaim. Once Part 2—Perestroika—was completed in 1992, the Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum produced the first full-length production of the play, which transferred to Broadway in 1993 and quickly established itself as an American classic. Following the success of Angels in America, Kushner continued to write at the intersection of the personal and the political, building a canon of plays that includes Slavs! (1994); A Dybbuk; or, Between Two Worlds (1995); and Homebody/ Kabul (1999). After their partnership on Caroline, or Change, Kushner also collaborated with Jeanine Tesori on a translation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children in 2006.

In addition to his success on the stage, Kushner has had a prosperous career in film. A close collaborator of Steven Spielberg, Kushner co-wrote the screenplay for his movie Munich (2005), and also wrote Lincoln (2012). He adapted Angels in America for HBO (2003) and also penned the screenplay for August Wilson's Fences (2016). His adaptation of West Side Story, directed by Spielberg, is set to premiere on screen in December of 2021. In 2012, President Obama awarded Tony Kushner a National Medal of Arts—a testament to his prodigious creative contributions to the landscape of American theatre.

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Jeanine Tesori: Music

Composer and musical arranger Jeanine Tesori grew up in Port Washington, New York. With five Tony Award® nominations and one Tony Win for Best Original Score, as well as three Drama Desk Awards to her name (not to mention countless other accolades), Tesori is one of the most decorated musical composers of our time. Though Tesori started playing piano at three years old and was writing songs as early as age five, she gave up playing at age 14 to focus on high school sports. It wasn’t until she was a few semesters into her time at Barnard College, where she was studying Pre-Med, that Tesori realized she missed music and promptly changed her major to a Columbia University-based music program. After graduating in 1983, Tesori spent time as a conductor and dance music arranger but eventually left the world of conducting to write Violet, her first musical, with librettist Brian Crawley.

Violet, inspired by the short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts, premiered off-Broadway in 1997, and it was revived on Broadway with Roundabout in 2014. In the 20 year interim, Tesori was busy composing music for a slew of critically and popularly acclaimed musicals. Her Broadway credits now include Twelfth Night (1999 at Lincoln Center); Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002); Caroline, or Change (2004); Shrek The Musical (2008); and John Guare’s A Free Man of Color (2010). In 2015, Tesori and writer Lisa Kron made history by becoming the first female writing team to win a Tony for Best Original Score for Fun Home.

Tesori’s impressive resume continues to grow. Her opera Blue premiered at The Glimmerglass Festival in the summer of 2019, and her recent collaboration with playwright David Henry Hwang—the musical Soft Power—premiered at The Public Theatre this past fall. With a multitude of projects in development and a movie adaptation of Fun Home in the works, new iterations of Tesori’s genius are sure to be gracing our ears in the near future.

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REFERENCES
Greenberg, James. “The Long, Long Road to Building 'Fences'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Dec. 2016.

Hetrick, Adam. “Steven Spielberg Shares Photos From Set as West Side Story Wraps.” Playbill, PLAYBILL INC., 2 Oct. 2019.

“President Obama to Award 2012 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration.

“Tony Kushner: 'Caroline, or Change'.” NPR, NPR, 20 June 2006.

“Tony Kushner.” Columbia 250, Columbia University.