Angels in America takes place between October 1985 and February 1986, with an epilogue in February 1990. In those few months, the AIDS epidemic was in its [[fifth year]]. There was [[no approved treatment]] yet, the President had [[barely mentioned the disease]] in public, and the real Roy Cohn was dying while telling the world he had [[liver cancer]]. Kushner wrote the play in the years right after, while [[!ACT UP]] was occupying federal buildings and stock exchanges. The first audiences watched it [[!in the middle of the catastrophe it describes.]]

Everything on this site is here to help you hear the play the way those audiences did:

• the history it carries,
• the arguments it stages,
• and the hope it insists on.

Read it before the show, or come back to it after.