Angels in America is Free to Salem Residents Friday, December 6

SALEM, MASS. – One of Broadway’s most searing epics is playing at Salem State University, with residents of Salem able to attend Friday night’s showing for free.

Tony Kushner’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Angels in America, Part One: Millenium Approaches will wrap up at Salem State University’s Sophia Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts this weekend.

With three more dates remaining, Friday’s performance will be free to Salem residents showing proof of residency. The evening is a continuation of “Salem Night” offerings, giving residents an opportunity to see a show without paying the cost of admission.

“With about 70 arts events annually on campus featuring the work of students, faculty and guest artists, most of the events we put on are free, and our ticket prices are low when there is a ticket,” President John D. Keenan said. “As a state institution continually looking for opportunities to remove barriers to accessibility, including for our own arts programming, Salem Nights are another way we strive to make some of our largest productions accessible to the residents of Salem, our home community. I’m also looking forward to seeing the show myself.”

Angels In America is a two-part epic that focuses on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City during the 1980s. The production weaves real people with fictional figures who must confront love, loss and responsibility in concert with the politics and social failures surrounding the virus and its emergence in the United States. The material contains mature subject matter.

“Today’s student generation has COVID-19 as a point of reference for what happens within a pandemic, when there’s fear, and public health agencies are trying to get messaging out,” said Karen Gahagan, director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at Salem State. “Angels in America, Part One was a significant undertaking, a really challenging body of material. It gives audiences a glimpse into the AIDS/HIV epidemic of the 1980s as it became part of that generation’s reality.”

Faculty director Peter Sampieri describes Angels in America as a “gritty and poetic meditation on the limits of love, disease and faith.”

“The power and reach of this piece cannot be over-stated,” Sampieri said. “When season planning, it shocked us to learn that in 50 years of our department’s existence, we have never produced a play by Tony Kushner.

“It is more than overdue,” Sampieri continued. “In committing to this challenging material, we made meaningful connections with the nursing department, counseling and health services, NAGLY (The North Shore Alliance of GLBTQ youth), and World Aids Day on campus. Most importantly, our queer students and faculty share a deep sense of pride and validation exploring the characters and events.”

In addition to Friday night’s performance of Angels in America, three more Salem Nights are planned for the coming spring 2025 semester:

· March 1: Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties by Jen Silverman, in the Callan Studio Theatre;

· March 29: The Ballad of Tam Lin, a folk opera by Molly Pinto Madigan '13, in the Recital Hall (Harrington Campus); and

· April 25: As You Like It by William Shakespeare, in the Sophia Gordon Center Main Stage Theatre.

Please visit the Angels in America event page for tickets and event times, and salemstate.edu/arts for more information.