Theater

Kushner adapted his epic Tony-award winning play Angels in America into a screenplay for HBO (broadcast this month in two three-hour parts). The play is set in New York in the mid-1980s during the midst of the AIDS epidemic. The HBO film is directed by Mike Nichols and stars Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson. Kushner also has a new semi-autobiographical musical Caroline, or Change at the Public Theater in New York.

Newman was nominated for a Tony last year for his role in Our Town, in a production that originated at his Connecticut theatre company. The production will soon be shown on PBS.

Performance artist, writer and theater director Rhodessa Jones is co-artistic director of the San Franciso performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is also founder and director of the "Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women," a performance workshop for women in prison in which she helps them develop and stage works based on their own stories. Jones' solo performance works include Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers, and Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women.

She starred in the London production of Gypsy. When she was 17 she debuted in Gaslight, and was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ingrid Bergman s Cockney maid. Lansbury also played opposite Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls, was Elvis Presley s mother in Blue Hawaii and the manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate. On stage she starred in Mame and was the baker of the worst pies in London in Sweeney Todd. For twelve years she starred in the TV series, Murder, She Wrote. This interview first aired November 28, 2000.

Together they are known as "The Right Size," and are the actor/writers of the Broadway comedy, The Play What I Wrote. One critic described it as "full of music hall tricks, in jokes and surreal goonery." It was a hit in London before coming to New York. The duo's work is heavily influenced by Vaudeville and the sight gags of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Their plays Stop Calling Me Vernon and Baldy Hopkins were hits at the Edinburgh Festival. Their play Do You Come Here Often? was an Olivier award winning comedy in England.

With his writing partner, Fred Ebb, Kander wrote the music for the original Broadway musical Chicago. The movie version of Chicago is nominated for 13 Academy Awards this year. Kander and Ebb are nominated for their song "I Move On." Kander and Ebb also wrote the music for the shows Cabaret, The Act, Woman of the Year, and Flora the Red Meance, and the Martin Scorsese movie musical New York, New York. Both Chicago and Cabaret have recently been revived on Broadway.

He's currently performing in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's concurrent productions of Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya. Beale is a member of London's acclaimed Donmar Warehouse company. He plays Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Vanya in Uncle Vanya. Beale has won a number of Olivier Awards and has appeared in several films, including An Ideal Husband and The Temptation of Franz Schubert.

Cherry Jones is currently appearing in Lysistrata at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. Jones is a founding member of the American Repertory Theatre and has appeared in 23 A.R.T. productions. Shes won Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League awards. Jones has starred or appeared in many Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. Her film appearances include The Perfect Storm, Cradle Will Rock and the upcoming Signs, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

From the South African production of the opera Carmen, and Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries, an opera based on the medieval Chester Mystery plays: Music Director Charles Hazlewood and Singers Sandile Kamle and Pauline Malefane. The operas were staged in Londons West End to rave reviews. They are currently making their American premiere at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina that runs May 24-June 9. (www.spoletousa.org). Hazlewood went to South Africa and auditioned over a thousand performers for Carmen.

South African writer, actress and first-time playwright Pamela Gien. Her off-broadway one-woman show is The Syringa Tree. It's a semi-autobiographical play about the love between two families, one black, one white. She plays 28 different characters in it.