Theater Review – May 2, 2026

SCT’S “ANGELS IN AMERICA – PART I: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES” IS BRILLIANTLY PRODUCED

“Angels in America – Part I: Millennium Approaches”

Stray Cat Theatre
Studio Theatre, Tempe Center for the Arts
Tempe, AZ

By Chris Curcio
Theater Critic

Tony Kushner’s 1991 “Angels in America” is a massive two-part masterpiece that brilliantly describes the AIDS crisis that plagued the world before medications controlled the disease.  It views AIDS’s effects on a very diverse population.  Staging the work is a huge undertaking for any theater company so it is rarely performed.

While “Angels” has played the Valley before, it has been years since it has been produced here.  The Stray Cat Theatre’s marvelous version is a superlative staging in the gifted hands of director Ron May and a perfect cast of marvelous local performers who rise to the play’s tremendous challenges artfully.  For the opening weekend, the play’s first part, “Millennium Approaches,” was the three-hour plus tour de force.  This week brings Part II, “Perestroika,” before the final weekend presents the two parts in alternating performances.

I was one of the lucky people who saw the piece in its initial Los Angeles and New York stagings and, like those masterpiece versions, the Stray Cat production is just as gripping and emotionally engaging as it makes audiences understand what this crisis did to the world.

The play focuses on political operative Roy Cohn and how his diagnosis forced him to reveal his safely hidden alternative lifestyle.  It also explores how an errant married man, Joe Pitt, must face and admit his homosexuality to Harper, his trusting and naïve wife.  AIDS ramifications are different on each impacted individual.

Kushner makes every character complex so the AIDS discussions are vivid and revealing.  Some believe in open honesty while others strive to keep the disease a dark secret but is that possible?  “Angels in America” still tells today’s society relevant things.

Commanding the production is Louis Farber’s nuanced Roy Cohn, a man afraid to reveal his medical status which tells us much about Cohn’s hypocrisy.  He is a vicious, manipulative scoundrel and Farber lets us see Cohn’s awful side but he also reveals the more thoughtful and believe-it-or-not caring side of this opportunist.

Marshall Glass plays emotional Prior Walter, a gay man not ashamed to let everyone know who he is.  Devon Mahon is the cautious but experimental Joe Pitt who must handle his unsuspecting wife, Harper, played with sincere trust by Courtney Weir who then must confront that her protective circle is shattered by her husband’s gay admittance.

Michael Thompson is a flamboyant Belize, a homosexual unafraid of being his own person. Nathan Spector is Prior’s steadfast and faithful partner, Louis Ironson, who can’t believe what Prior expects of him but is always true to him even at the lowest moments.  If there is a problem, the performers projection sometimes made it difficult to understand every word of dialogue.

Stray Cat Theatre’s “Millennium Approaches” is a remarkable staging and makes one anxious to see what the company does with “Perestroika.”  “Millennium Approaches” continues on May 12, 14, and 16. “Perestroika,” which will be reviewed in this space next week, is being presented May 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, and 16.  To order tickets, call the Tempe Center for the Arts box office at 480-350-2822 or order tickets online at www.tempecenterforthearts.com.

“Millennium Approaches”

Grade: A