Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights

This book shows the political potential of mainstream theatre in the US at the end of the 20th century, tracing ideological change in the reception of mainstream plays about HIV/AIDS. Studying the politics of performance, LGBT theatre, and mainstream theatre’s political potential, it shows how radical ideas become mainstream and how dominant ideologies change. Using materialist semiotics and extensive archival research, Juntunen delineates the cultural history of The Normal Heart, Angels in America, Rent, and The Laramie Project. This book will be of interest to scholar of theatre, politics, media studies, queer theory, and US history, and to those with an interest in gay civil rights.