Playwright Tony Kushner to deliver Tanner Lectures

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner will deliver this year’s Tanner Lectures on Human Values, sponsored by the Office of the President and the Department of English at Harvard University. Kushner will speak on the topic “Fiction That’s True! Historical Fiction and Anxiety” on April 9 and 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall. On April 11 from 10 a.m. to noon, Kushner will lead a seminar with Harvard commentators at the New College Theatre.

Free tickets to the lectures will be available starting March 26 at the Harvard Box Office in person or by calling (617) 496-2222. (Please note that nominal handling fees apply for all phone orders and there’s a ticket limit of two per person. All inquiries may be directed to tanner_lectures@harvard.edu.)

Born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, La., Kushner is best known for his two-part epic “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” His other plays include “A Bright Room Called Day,” “Slavs!” “Hydriotaphia,” “Homebody/Kabul,” and “Caroline, or Change,” the musical for which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ film “Angels in America” and Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.” His books include “Brundibar,” “The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present,” and “Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict.”

Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Oscar nomination, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a Mid-Career Playwright, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and a Cultural Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, among others. Most recently, “Caroline, or Change,” produced in the autumn of 2006 at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, received the Evening Standard Award, the London Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. He is working on a screenplay about Abraham Lincoln and a new play titled “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.” He lives in Manhattan with his husband.