[UPDATE: Apologies, we are having technical difficulties with the audio file. Looking to correct the problem now. FIXED!]

Tony Kushner’s new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, just opened at The Public Theater. To celebrate, we’d like to share an archival recording of the playwright reading at the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center.

In this excerpt from his 1995 appearance, Kushner reads a scene from his play A Bright Room Called Day; a poem against drama critics (“A Song For Playwrights in Self-Defense”); and a scene from Perestroika, the second part of Angels in America.

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive—including a conversation with the creators of Gatz, which ran at The Public last fall—please click here.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

You can also download the MP3. [13.7 MB]

[Right-click and select “Save Target As:” or equivalent to download.]

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