Kushner has mentioned the German playwright Bertolt Brecht as a significant influence on his work. Read one of Brecht's notable plays, such as 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 elements like plot structure, character development, and how each playwright addresses key themes in their work.

Angels in America is subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes." In music, a "fantasia" is a freeform composition where the composer allows imagination, or "fantasy," to take precedence over the rules of a specific musical form. Fantasias can also be a medley of well-known tunes blended 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 identify ways in which Kushner's play is structured similarly to a musical fantasia. Consider the number of scenes and characters in Angels in America, as well as the play's themes and how they are interwoven into the plot.

The setting for Angels in America is crucial to the plot and its characters. The 1980s are seen as a period of economic greed and increasing political conservatism. It was also the decade when AIDS was discovered, and homosexuals in America had to fight for rights, recognition, and survival. Choose a year from the eighties and research the major news stories in politics, economics, and medicine from that time. Then revisit Kushner's play to see how your findings may have influenced the characters and their actions.

The first part of Angels in America is subtitled Millennium Approaches. The term "millennium" has a dual meaning. It refers to a period of one thousand years and, in some religions, suggests a hoped-for era of joy, prosperity, and justice that will occur near judgment day. Research the significance of changing millennia in history. How did people behave around the turn of the last millennium in the year 1000? What events were planned around the turn of the next millennium in 2000? How is the prospect of a new millennium significant in Kushner's play?