Age: 70
male
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work Angels in America which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn of the 21st Century he became known for his numerous film collaborations with Steven Spielberg. He received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013. Kushner made his Broadway debut in 1993 with both Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. He then adapted it into a 2003 miniseries directed by Mike Nichols for which Kushner received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series or Movie. In 2003 he wrote the lyrics and book to the musical Caroline, or Change which earned Kushner Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. The 2021 Broadway revival of Caroline, or Change earned Kushner a nomination for the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, making Kushner among the few playwrights in history nominated for all four major American entertainment awards: the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards. He has collaborated with director Steven Spielberg on the films Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), West Side Story (2021), and The Fabelmans (2022), the former two earning him nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Description above from the Wikipedia article Tony Kushner, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Set in the ruthless world of modern corporate power, King Lear follows Lear, an aging and fiercely controlling billionaire CEO who has spent decades building one of the world's most powerful business empires. Believing the time has come to secure his legacy, Lear announces that he will divide control of his company among his three daughters according to how convincingly each can demonstrate her love and loyalty to him. Goneril and Regan eagerly play the game, offering elaborate declarations that satisfy their father's vanity. Cordelia, Lear's youngest and most honest daughter, refuses to turn her love into a performance. Furious, Lear disowns Cordelia and gives her share of the empire to her sisters, setting in motion a brutal struggle for control. As Goneril and Regan consolidate their power, their alliances begin to fracture. Lear discovers that the daughters who promised him everything now consider him an obstacle. Cast out, Lear's anger and humiliation gradually give way to paranoia and madness. Unknown to him, Cordelia has returned in disguise as his Fool, allowing her to remain close to her father and care for him while challenging the delusions that increasingly consume him. Meanwhile, Lear's trusted associate Gloucester suffers a similar betrayal within his own family. His illegitimate son Edmund manipulates him into believing that his loyal legitimate son Edgar is plotting against him, forcing Edgar into exile and allowing Edmund to rise within the corporate hierarchy. As Edmund's ambitions intersect with those of Goneril and Regan, the struggle for Lear's empire becomes increasingly violent and destructive. Albany and Kent begin to recognize the devastating consequences of their family's pursuit of power. Lear's downfall becomes inseparable from the destruction of the empire he built, culminating in a final confrontation that leaves the surviving members of the family forced to reckon with the cost of ambition, betrayal, pride, and misplaced loyalty.
