Kushner has cited the German playwright Bertolt Brecht as a major influence on his writing. Read one of Brecht's major plays, perhaps Mother Courage and Her Children or The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and compare and contrast Brecht's style of epic, political theatre with Kushner's. Consider such things as plot structure, depth of characters, and how each man treats important themes in his work.

Angels in America is subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes." In music, a "fantasia" is a free-form composition in which the composer lets imagination, or "fantasy," prevail over rules of a particular musical form. Fantasias may also be a medley of familiar tunes woven together with variations and interludes. Listen to a fantasia, perhaps Johann Sebastian Bach's "Fantasia in G" or Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis," and determine ways in which Kushner's play...