The 2009 Out 100: Tony Kushner

Photo: Jason Bell

Today's featured honoree from our 2009 "School Days"–themed Out 100 -- our pick of the 100 gay, lesbian, and trans people who have made an impact in their communities and on mainstream culture in the last 12 months -- is Tony Kushner, voted "The Rebel."

A new Tony Kushner play is always an event. His latest -- The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures, in which a 75-year old man gathers his offspring to announce that he’s killing himself -- is destined for Broadway next spring following a preview in Minneapolis last April. Also next year, his opus Angels in America -- “a gay fantasia on national themes,” in his words -- gets a much-anticipated off-Broadway reissue. The director, who in 2008 won the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, lives with his partner, Mark Harris, whom he married in 2003, complete with rings from Tiffany’s in New York and then again, legally, in Massachusetts in 2008. “One cake designer I called said, ‘We specialize in elaborate beautiful white flowers all over the cake,’ ” Harris told a reporter for the New York Times Vows section in 2003. “So I said, ‘I should tell you, this is for two men.’ There was a slight pause, and she said, ‘I can put little baseball players all over it?’ ”

Monday we'll reveal the full 2009 Out 100 portfolio, shot by Jason Bell, in stores and online at Out.com.

Previously > The 2009 Out 100: Pedro Almodóvar