2017 GTC Keynote Speaker
Tony Kushner
His recent work includes a collection of one-act plays entitled Tiny Kushner, and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. In addition, a revival of Angels in America ran off-Broadway at the Signature Theater and won the Lucille Lortel Award in 2011 for Outstanding Revival.
Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a Cultural Achievement Award from The National Foundation for Jewish Culture, a Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for lifetime achievement, the 2012 National Medal of Arts, and the 2015 Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater Award, among many others. Caroline, or Change, produced at the National Theatre of Great Britain, received the Evening Standard Award, the London Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Olivier Award for Best Musical.
In September 2008, Tony Kushner became the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the largest theater award in the US. He is the subject of a documentary film, Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, made by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.
Born in New York City in 1956, and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Kushner is best known for his two-part epic, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.
His other plays include A Bright Room Called Day, Slavs!, Hydrotaphia, Homebody/Kabul, and Caroline, or Change, the musical for which he wrote book and lyrics, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ film of Angels In America, and Steven Spielberg’s Munich.
In 2012 he wrote the screenplay for Spielberg's movie Lincoln. His screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award, Boston Society of Film Critics Award, Chicago Film Critics Award, and several others.
His books include But the Giraffe: A Curtain Raising and Brundibar: the Libretto, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.
Convention Pricing Breakdown
Individual Adult
$70
College Student
$55 plus $20 audition fee if applicable
High School Student
$40 plus $20 audition fee if applicable
Middle School Festival Participants (5th-8th grade)
$150 per team plus $10 per student
(Includes Director’s membership & registration plus festival fee.
Chaperones are $10 per participant.)
Festival Entry
(Includes Director’s membership & registration plus festival fee)
$150 plus appropriate membership and convention registration
for each festival participant as indicated above. Community
Festival participants pay $25 each.
College Exhibitors
$150 (Includes 1 College Rep’s membership & registration plus Organizational Membership fee)
Commercial Exhibitors
$100
Chaperones
$25 [Secondary chaperones must register as Individual Adult Members ($70) in order to receive full access to the Convention. Individuals registered as Secondary Chaperones will have limited access to convention activities based on seating availability and other concerns.]
Registration will open Aug. 28 at a random time.
GTC 2017 Workshops
If you would like to participate in GTC 2017 by offering a workshop, please fill out the following form:
Workshop Proposal
Current List of Workshops
Current 2017 Convention Schedule
Convention Workshops