Tony Kushner

Tony Kushner was born to a family of Jewish musicians. He was a good student, and active in policy debate in high school. He attended Columbia University, where he was politically active, and received a B.A. in Medieval Studies in 1978. Afterwards, Kushner attended the Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied theater. For most of the 1980s, Kushner was active in the New York theater world, gaining a reputation for writing provocative, politically-oriented plays that mixed harsh commentary on economic inequality and the AIDS crisis with a fantastic, operatic style. In 1991, Kushner finished by far his most famous play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The first part of the play was first performed in San Francisco, and the second part was first performed in New York City in 1992. Kushner’s work was universally regarded as a masterpiece: it won both the Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for the best play of 1992. Since the 90s, Kushner has continued to write plays prolifically, though none have ever rivaled the cultural impact of Angels in America. In addition to his work in theater, Kushner is a prolific screenwriter noted for his collaborations with Steven Spielberg. Kushner wrote the screenplays for both Munich (2005) and Lincoln (2012).