Angels in America Lesson Plan

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Kind of Activity:

Performance

Objective:

To analyze how a work is structured and revised

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3

Structure:

When Kushner finished his first draft of Perestroika it was 700 pages long. The first staged reading of Perestroika lasted over twelve hours; audience members were close to mutiny. While Perestroika is still a long work today (it runs to 4 hours as a performed work), it has been cut and revised a great deal. In the 2013 revised edition there are two scenes from Perestroika that Kushner has recently admitted should be cut from the main text. In this exercise students will act out these scenes, then discuss...