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ShareXavier Players Present "Angels in America"
Affiliated activities offered
03/04/09
March 26-29 at 7:30 p.m. each night, Xavier Players will present Angels in America by Tony Kushner, directed by Cathy Springfield. Tickets cost $15 each ($7 for Xavier students, faculty and staff if purchased day of show; $5 for Xavier students, faculty and staff if purchased in advance). Tickets can be purchased on-line 24/7 at: https://xavier-players.ticketleap.com.
An epic yet intimate drama centered on two couples whose relationships are disintegrating, Angels in America reveals the darker side of 1980s America - greed, conservatism, sexual politics, and the discovery of an awful new disease called AIDS. The play is a political call to arms for the age of AIDS. Kushner's convictions about power and justice are expressed in styles ranging from precise realism to surrealistic hallucination, from black comedy to religious revelation. Characters move in and out of conversations with each other, sometimes overlapping vignettes, and settings rapidly change from offices to bedrooms to hospital wards to an imaginary South Pole.
Xavier’s production is presented on a sparsely decorated raked stage. “Each scene is in a small space saturated with color and light, which literally color the passion and emotions we are carefully examining,” says director Springfield. “The setting is New York City in the late ‘80s and what could be more iconic in light of our current financial woes than the Twin Towers? We know the cultural shift which occurred with those towers at the beginning of this decade and can relate to the Angel’s final words in the play – “The great work begins.”
Angels in America is widely acclaimed, having won the 1993 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play, the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the 1993 Tony Award for Best Play. It addresses themes of community, identity and change all in the atmosphere of politics.
During every play, the cast and crew of Xavier Players participate in some sort of service work. For this play, they will be sewing angel blankets for the March of Dimes. These pieces of fabric sewn together are worn by the parents inside their clothes for a few days before being placed with the babies. It gives them the familiarity of their parents’ scent to comfort them.
Other events during play week:
- Meet activist playwright Naomi Wallace on Tuesday, March 24 from 4 – 6 pm in the Gallagher Student Center Theatre. Students from across campus will present a free staged reading of scenes from Naomi Wallace’s works, directed by Kevin Crowley. A conversation with the playwright follows. Angels playwrightKushner is the godfather of Wallace’s daughter.
- Friday, March 27th, 11 am -2 pm, free AIDS testing will be available on campus. The bus will be in front of the Gallagher Student Center by the “Scales of Justice” sculpture.
- Friday, March 27 after the show (about 9:30 pm) a free religious roundtable on homosexuality will be hosted in the theatre by students Pat McNearney and Brad Seligmann
It is the philosophy of the Xavier Players to combine real-life experiences in the form of meaningful service that relates to the issues presented in the plays. The players believe it is in this act of service that one truly become socially aware. Xavier, as a Catholic Jesuit University, strives to form students intellectually, morally, spiritually, with rigor and compassion, toward lives of solidarity, service and success. Part of the way the Society of Jesus deals with prejudice is through the promotion of justice in bringing the marginalized to the mainstream.