Playwright Tony Kushner to speak at Duke | Raleigh News & Observer

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner will deliver a public lecture on ethics at Duke University on Monday.

Kushner is author of “Angels in America,” the early 1990s two-part play about the AIDS epidemic during the Reagan administration. He will deliver the Crown Lecture in Ethics, “A Conversation About Art and Politics,” at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

Kushner has also written two screenplays for Steven Spielberg, “Munich” and “Lincoln.” His most recent play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures,” is described as a family drama with themes of suicide, the decline of unions and social justice.

“Tony Kushner has woven politics into his art and brought the clarifying language of poetry to politics,” said Philip Bennett, director of Duke’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, who will appear with Kushner on stage. “As a provocateur, social critic and moral conscience, he’s been an evangelist not just for progressive causes but for the cause of American democracy.”

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. It is free, but seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.