Image by getty images

Dignity in the limelight has been the watchword for this key year in playwright Tony Kushner’s career. A retrospective season at the Signature Theatre Company saw the first major restaging of both parts of his 1990s masterpiece, “Angels in America” — which won both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 — as well as his first significant new play in nearly a decade, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures” which was performed at the Public Theater.

However, Kushner also faced controversy that erupted in May, when the City University of New York Board of Trustees initially turned down a request fromJohn Jay College to grant him an honorary degree. Based solely on the strong opinion of a single member of the board that Kushner was “anti-Israel,” the board declined the college’s request.

In a letter to the trustees, Kushner, 55, expressed disappointment at the way his words had been used out of context and in the way the matter had been handled. As a supporter of Israel and a critics of some of its actions, he felt he had been misrepresented. Shortly afterward, in the face of mounting criticism, the board reversed its decision and approved the degree.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Born in Manhattan, but brought up in Lake Charles, La., Kushner has spent much of his life in New York City. Five years after the commitment ceremony between him and his partner, Mark Harris, became the first same-sex commitment ceremony to be published in the Vows column of The New York Times, the couple legally married in 2008 in Provincetown, Mass.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount