{"id":84496,"date":"2015-04-08T11:00:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84496"},"modified":"2015-04-08T14:43:55","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T18:43:55","slug":"the-majoritarian-tyranny-an-interview-with-tony-kushner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/08\/the-majoritarian-tyranny-an-interview-with-tony-kushner\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Majoritarian Tyranny\u201d: An Interview with Tony Kushner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ArwC7FBKf9s?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At <a href=\"http:\/\/92yondemand.org\/Topic\/poetry-center-online\/\">92Y\u2019s Unterberg Poetry Center<\/a>, <em>The Paris Review<\/em> has copresented an occasional series of live conversations with writers\u2014many of which have formed the foundations of interviews in the quarterly. Recently, 92Y and <em>The Paris Review<\/em> have made recordings of these interviews available at <a href=\"http:\/\/92yondemand.org\/Topic\/paris-review-series\/\">92Y\u2019s Poetry Center Online<\/a> and here at\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/92y\">The Paris Review<\/a><\/em>. Consider them deleted scenes from our Writers at Work interviews, or directors\u2019 cuts, or surprisingly lifelike radio adaptations.<\/p>\n<p>This week we\u2019re rolling out the four latest editions to the collection: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/07\/you-learn-to-trust-it-an-interview-with-horton-foote\/\"><strong>Horton Foote<\/strong><\/a><\/strong>, <strong>Gail Godwin<\/strong>, <strong>Reynolds<\/strong> <strong>Price<\/strong>, and <strong>Tony Kushner<\/strong>. All are Southerners, and as coincidence would have it, we\u2019re just in time for the 150th anniversary of Lee\u2019s surrender at Appomattox Court House and the end of the Civil War, on April 9. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Today: a conversation between <strong>Tony Kushner<\/strong> and <strong>Frank Rich <\/strong>from May 20, 2003. Though <em>The Paris Review <\/em>ran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/interviews\/6153\/the-art-of-theater-no-16-tony-kushner\">an interview with Kushner in our Summer 2012 issue<\/a>, none of its material was ultimately drawn from this recording, which finds Kushner in rare form\u2014he and Rich discuss <em>Angels in America<\/em>, the power of art that courts controversy, and gay life in America:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Enormous things have changed. Not enough has changed, but &#8230; we\u2019ve done spectacularly well in winning one aspect of the culture wars \u2026 Our fate and the fate of any minority seeking real enfranchisement in this country is tied up entirely with the question of whether or not the government\u2019s role in a protector of minority rights against majoritarian tyranny continues or is dismantled by right-wing ideologues who are disguising the old states-right agenda under the banner of Reaganism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Tomorrow, we\u2019ll feature an interview with Reynolds Price from 1990. In the meantime, you can check out some previous installments of the 92Y series: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/20\/the-poets-speak\/\">the poets<\/a> (<strong>Maya Angelou<\/strong>, <strong>Denise Levertov<\/strong>, and <strong>Gary Snyder<\/strong>) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/24\/take-a-mental-vacation-listen-to-travel-writers\/\">the travel writers<\/a> (<strong>Paul Theroux<\/strong>, <strong>Jan Morris<\/strong>, and <strong>Peter Matthiessen<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>We are able to share these recordings thanks to a generous gift in memory of Christopher Lightfoot Walker, longtime friend of the Poetry Center and <i>The Paris Review<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of <\/em>The Paris Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 92Y\u2019s Unterberg Poetry Center, The Paris Review has copresented an occasional series of live conversations with writers\u2014many of which have formed the foundations of interviews in the quarterly. Recently, 92Y and The Paris Review have made recordings of these interviews available at 92Y\u2019s Poetry Center Online and here at\u00a0The Paris Review. Consider them deleted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7646],"tags":[11557,16112,17697,5227,12365,1132,7221,165,14627,16536,17696,7767,10113],"class_list":["post-84496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look-2","tag-92y","tag-92y-ungerberg-poetry-center","tag-appomattox","tag-audio","tag-interview-series","tag-interviews","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-recordings","tag-southern-writers","tag-southerners","tag-tony-kushner","tag-writers-at-work"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Listen: An Archival Interview with Tony Kushner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 2003, Kushner and Frank Rich spoke at 92Y about 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