Angels in America | ITA – Ivo van Hove

If any contemporary play deserves to be called brilliant, it is undoubtedly Angels in America. After its premiere in San Francisco in 1991, Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes took the world by storm. The play was showered with awards and successfully filmed as an HBO series featuring, among others, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep.

'Masterly staging' – The Guardian ★★★★★

Date: August 15, 2026 - August 30, 2026
Duration: 294 min, interval included
Genre: Theatre

In 2008 Ivo van Hove directed a radical Angels in America that Tony Kushner himself called his favourite version, and for which Hans Kesting received the Louis d'Or for his portrayal of Roy Cohn. Now we are bringing the production back with a number of actors from the original cast, joined by new ensemble members. In a minimalist stage design and with nothing but songs by David Bowie, this adaptation of Angels in America is a tribute to the human capacity to adapt, to change and so to survive. A true (re)discovery of a modern classic, but above all a story that is still blisteringly topical.

America during the Reagan years

The AIDS epidemic is spreading but is passed over in silence by the conservative government. Two New Yorkers each try in their own way to deal with the news of their infection: the former drag queen Prior and the arch-conservative lawyer Roy Cohn, who forces those around him to lie about the nature of his illness.

In the first part, Millennium Approaches, all the characters are torn away from their roots and certainties: family, partners, religion and political ideologies no longer offer any anchor against the spreading illness and death. In the second part, Perestroika, new friendships and relationships hesitantly emerge and the characters are confronted with the painful process of change.

In a whirling succession of tragicomic scenes and entanglements, Tony Kushner shows that identity cannot be reduced to religion, race or sexuality, but is a continuous process that can only come about in contact with others.

Angels in America is a compelling, hilarious and heartbreaking story about the transforming power of love, about unstoppable change and about perseverance in times of crisis, and a tribute to the imagination. Not only as an escape from an unliveable reality, but also as a source of insight.

'You can love someone and still fall short'

From: Angels in America

Tony Kushner

The transforming power of art and of human will runs as a common thread through Kushner's work. In his plays he considers how people can change now that there are barely any ideological models left, and how they can form connections in a society marked by individualism and division. He believes that compassion and humanity are the most important ingredients through which people from widely differing backgrounds can come together.

Alongside his work as a playwright, Tony Kushner has become known in recent years above all for his close collaboration with Steven Spielberg, for whom he has now written four films: Munich, Lincoln, West Side Story and The Fabelmans.