The oral history of Angels in America, as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving account of the AIDS era, essential queer history, and pure "theater magic" (NPR).
In the 1990s, Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer- and Tony Award–winning Angels in America revitalized American theater and transformed the way gay lives were represented in popular culture. Its return to Broadway after a quarter century, in a starry revival with more Tony nominations than any play in history, confirmed its status as an enduring classic. But its journey to the stage—and the cultural pantheon—was just as epic as the events of the play itself, a hard-won miracle beset by artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative.
The World Only Spins Forward offers the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way possible: through oral history, the vibrant conversation and debate of actors (including Meryl Streep, Nathan Lane, and Andrew Garfield), directors, producers, critics, and Kushner himself. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan ’80s.
Built from nearly 250 interviews and hailed as a masterpiece of the form, The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art.