The Great Work Begins: Scenes from “Angels in America”

Tonight, as a fundraiser for amfAR, an all-star cast has come together and filmed scenes from Tony Kushner’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America. The event, The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America, runs at 8:30 PM EDT/5:30 PM PDT on Broadway.com’s YouTube Channel.

Kushner’s play takes a look at the early days of the AIDS crisis through the eyes of a closeted-Mormon man married to a a woman who experiences Valium-induced visions, a gay couple where one of the two men has just been diagnosed as having AIDS, notorious attorney Roy Cohn, a direct but compassionate nurse and an angel who tells one of the characters he is a prophet.

Over the course of sixty minutes scenes from Kushner’s monumental work will be performed. Here’s the cast:

Glenn Close as Roy Cohn, Paul Dano as Prior Walter, Linda Emond as Phosphor, Jeremy O. Harris as Belize, Brian Tyree Henry as Prior Walter, Nikki M. James as Lumen, Laura Linney as Hannah Pitt, Vella Lovell as Harper Pitt, Patti LuPone as Fluor, S. Epatha Merkerson as Belize, Larry Owens as Belize, Andrew Rannells as Prior Walter, Daphne Ruben-Vega as Candle, Lois Smith as Harper Pitt and Brandon Uranowitz as Louis Ironson.

As you can tell, multiple actors take on the same role. This should be quite interesting. Kushner will provide an introduction to the program.

During the show there will be interstitial moments featuring Alan Cumming, Whoopi Goldberg and Jake Gyllenhaal.

There is no charge to watch The Great Work Begins. However, there is an exclusive post-show conversation with Kushner; Paul Wontorek, Editor-in-Chief of Broadway.com; Kevin Robert Frost, CEO of amfAR; director Ellie Heyman and several actors from the performance. A minimum donation of $100 is required to view this 45-minute post-show event. To make a donation, please go here.

amfAR, which was formed in 1985, has made finding a cure for HIV/AIDS as its priority. The funds they raise turn into grants that are focused on finding that cure. They have also been active on the political front having been instrumental in the Ryan White CARE Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990 and the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993.

The title of this event comes from the closing moments of Angels in America: Perestroika:

“We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”

Photo: Playwright Tony Kushner (Photo by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com/Courtesy Broadway.com)