Ep. 54 The World Only Spins Forward by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois — The Stacks Book Club (Ben Blacker)

Ben Blacker is back and we’re talking all things theatre and oral history today on The Stacks, as we breakdown The World Only Spins Forward by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois. The book is an oral history of Angels in America, a classic American play about the AIDS crisis by Tony Kushner. We discuss government funded art, human rights, and so much theatre geek goodness. Plus, no spoilers. Listen and enjoy.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

• The World Only Spins Forward by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois
• Angels in America by Tony Kushner
• The Short Stacks 9: Isaac Butler//The World Only Spins Forward (The Stacks)
• Join The Stacks Pack — Patreon
• Ep 20: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates with Jay Connor (The Stacks)
• The Stacks Anniversary Superlatives
• Hamilton (Lin Manuel Miranda, 2015)
• Grantland
• The Ringer
• “Rocked” (Bryan Curtis and Patricia Lee, Grantland)
• “The Malice at the Palace” (Jonathan Abrams, Grantland)
• Live from New York by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
• Those Guys Have All the Fun by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
• Oskar Eustis
• The Public Theater

• George C. Wolfe
• Angels in America (Mike Nichols, 2003)
• Justin Kirk
• Ben Shenkman
• Meryl Streep
• Al Pacino
• Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg
• Damn Yankees (Stanley Donen, George Abbott, 1958)
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• “How Outrage Built Over a Shakespearean Depiction of Trump” ( Michael Paulson and Sopan Deb, New York Times)
• “A Universal Heart, Pounding With Hope” (Ben Brantley, The New York Times)
• Dear Evan Hansen (Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 2016)
• Tootsie (Sydney Pollack, 1982)
• Cats (Andrew Lloyd Webber, 1982)
• Wicked (Stephen Schwartz, 2003)
• Robert Mapplethorpe
• The Nederlander Organization
• Lin Manuel Miranda
• RENT (Jonathan Larson, 1994)
• When We Rise by Cleve Jones
• The Names Project: AIDS Memorial Quilt
• Emile Hirsch
• Into the Wild (Sean Penn, 2007)
• The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
• And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
• Spring Awakening by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik
• Book of Mormon (Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, 2011)
• Emma Thompson
• Debra Messing
• Mary-Louise Parker
• Marcia Gay Harden
• Elia Kazan
• Zoe Kazan
• Adam Driver
• Burn This by Lanford Wilson
• Jeffery Wright
• Basquiat (Julian Schnabel, 1996)
• Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)
• Westworld (HBO)
• Nathan Lane
• Stephen Spinella
• Andrew Garfield
• Ellen McLaughlin
• American Conservatory Theater
• RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1)
• Ben Brantley
• 8th Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)

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The Stacks received The World Only Spins Forward from the publisher. For more information click here.

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