Zachary Quinto, Zoe Kazan, Bill Heck & More to Star in Off-Broadway Revival of Angels in America

A starry young cast that includes Zachary Quinto, Zoe Kazan and Bill Heck has signed on to star in the first New York revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes at Signature Theatre Company. Michael Greif will direct the production, which will begin performances on September 14 at the Peter Norton Space. Opening night has been set for October 28. The two part of Angels in America—Millennium Approaches and Perestroika—will be performed in repertory from the start of the run.

Angels in America will feature Robin Bartlett (Prelude to a Kiss, TV’s Mad About You) as Hannah Pitt, Christian Borle (Legally Blonde, Spamalot) as Prior Walter, Bill Heck (The Orphans’ Home Cycle, The Merchant of Venice, The Winter’s Tale) as Joe Pitt, Zoe Kazan (The Seagull, A Behanding in Spokane) as Harper Pitt, Billy Porter (Smokey Joe’s Café, Five Guys Named Moe) as Belize, Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, TV’s Heroes) as Louis Ironson, Robin Weigert (Noises Off, TV’s Deadwood) as The Angel and Frank Wood (Side Man, August: Osage County) as Roy Cohn.

Set in late 1985 and early 1986, as the first wave of the AIDS epidemic in America is escalating and Ronald Reagan has been elected to a second term in the White House, the two part of Angels in America bring together a young gay man with AIDS (Borle) and his frightened, unfaithful lover (Quinto); a closeted Mormon lawyer (Heck) and his Valium-addicted wife (Kazan); the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn (Wood); an African-American male nurse (Porter); a Mormon housewife from Utah (Bartlett); and a steel-winged, prophecy-bearing angel (Weigert); as well as the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, an ancient rabbi, the world’s oldest living Bolshevik and a Reagan administration functionary, among many others, all played by a company of eight actors. The lives of these disparate characters intersect, intertwine, collide and are blown apart during a time of heartbreak, reaction and transformation.

Angels in America will feature scenic design by Mark Wendland, costume design by Clint Ramos, lighting design by Ben Stanton, sound design by Ken Travis, projection design by Wendall K. Harrington, original music by Michael Friedman and fight direction by Rick Sordelet.

Signature is celebrating its 20th anniversary season with the works of Pulitzer Prize and Tony winner Kushner. Also on tap are the New York premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (a co-production with the Public Theater); The Illusion, Kushner’s adaptation of the play by Pierre Corneille; and a final play to be chosen later.