‘Angels in America’ Casts Stephen Spinella and Bob the Drag Queen

[edjames]

‘Angels in America’ Casts Stephen Spinella and Bob the Drag Queen

By ISAAC OLIVERJAN. 4, 2018

Berkeley Repertory Theater in California announced Thursday that Mr. Spinella — who won two Tony Awards as Prior Walter in the original two-part Broadway production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” — will play Roy Cohn in a production there this spring.

• Caldwell Tidicue — an actor better known as Bob the Drag Queen, the winner of Season 8 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — will play the nurse Belize in his first role in a major stage production. Mr. Tidicue’s acting credits include appearances on HBO’s “High Maintenance” and in the films “Rough Night” and “Cherry Pop.”
   
  The cast will also include Randy Harrison (Showtime’s “Queer as Folk” and USA’s “Mr. Robot”) as Prior. Tony Taccone, the Berkeley Rep artistic director, will direct; the play was originally commissioned by the Eureka Theater when Mr. Taccone was artistic director there.
   
  Performances are scheduled to start April 17 and run through July 22.
   
  A new Broadway revival of “Angels in America” is also planned to open at the Neil Simon Theater in March, starring Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn.
   
  

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I love Spinella

[+ WilliamM]

Oskar Eustis (co-director in Los Angeles, 1992; artistic director, Public Theater): While we were working on the play, the AIDS Quilt had its first public display at the Moscone Center. We came across a panel:

 

Photo: Tony Kushner

Eustis: Tony looked at it and said, “If I can write something half as dialectical as that, it’ll be a great character.”

 

Cleve Jones (founder, NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt): I remember when that panel was made. One of the volunteers told me, there’s someone behaving oddly here, come check it out.

 

I went up to him and he was super-secretive and flipped the panel over and I said, “You know, if it’s going to be in the quilt, I’m going to have to see it, so why don’t you show it to me?” and he did. My hair just stood on end. It was the first of the … eventually there would be many very harsh panels, you know, but this was kind of in a league of its own. The first thing I asked him was “Did you actually know Roy Cohn?” and he said, “I knew him very well,” and so I said, “Fine.”