Pulitzer Prize–winner Tony Kushner Writing Play About Candidate Trump

Playwright, best known for 'Angels in America,' to set play two years before the election.

July 19, 2017 12:33 pm
Pulitzer Prize–Winning Playwright Tony Kushner Writing Play About Trump
Playwright Tony Kushner speaks during the NYU Tisch School of the Arts 50th Anniversary Gala at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 4, 2016 in New York City. (J. Countess/Getty Images)

Apparently, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Tony Kushner has paid no mind to the recent controversy surrounding Shakespeare in the Park’s Julius Caesar. The genius mind behind Angels in America told the Daily Beast that he’s working on a play about President Donald Trump, who he refers to as “borderline psychotic.”

The play takes place two years before the 2016 election win—and has been a struggle, in that Kushner finds Trump to be rather “boring.” But he doesn’t stop there. “It’s terrifying because [Trump] has all the power, but without the mental faculties he ought to have. I think he is seriously mentally ill, and the fact that he is in the White House is very frightening.”

Kushner, of course, has a “history” with Trump, as his character Roy Cohn in Angels in America was a friend and advisor of Trump’s. “The difference between Trump and Cohn—for all the malevolence and disturbance Roy was capable of—is that he was also capable of genuine loyalty and an affectional constancy,” Kushner tells the Daily Beast.

Could Cohn show up in the new play? “I think I’ve done all I want to do with him,” says Kushner. “Maybe not. We’ll see.”

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