Play Reading Recalls Historic, Controversial Production at Western

There are few plays in American literature that had quite the impact that Angels in America had in both the world of theatre and the mainstream.  For as much as its remembered for its brilliance, the two-part, seven-hour surrealist epic is also known for the controversy that surrounds it. With its honest depiction of the lives of gay men in during the 1980s, to this day the play is regarded as one of the most significant culture war battlefields of its era. In 1996, the same year a dispute over the play's production drew national attention in Charlotte, NC, Western Colorado University, then just a small state college in Gunnison, CO, became the first school to stage both parts. Heather Nicholson Hughes was in that production, that drew both protests and praise from the community. Now she’s back at Western as a co-producer of a staged reading of the play.