Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes won a Pulitzer Prize, two Tonys and numerous other awards. His other works include Hydrotaphia, A Bright Room Called Day and Slavs!: Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness.

When I was Director of Literary Services for Theatre Communications Group, Peter Zeisler made me attend the Humana Festival. I hadn’t wanted to go. I thought of the festival, when I thought of it at all, as the cradle for a dramatic aesthetic to which I was opposed. So I was surprised, when I finally went to Louisville, to encounter its remarkable variety, vitality and complexity: plays I loved, plays I hated, plays of unfulfilled promise and plays that took everyone by surprise, all bumping up against one another, setting each other off. The festival, year after year, has been a broad, unpredictable, noisy colloquium on the nature of dramatic art. And everything is so beautifully, thoughtfully produced; part of Jon’s legacy should be an appreciation for the proper care and feeding of plays and playwrights, which includes marvelous actors, smart directors, useful dramaturgs and designers, and generous technical support. What a good idea theatre turns out to be, when it’s done well!