Tony Kushner Will Direct The Normal Heart Benefit Reading for The Public

Tony Kushner Will Direct The Normal Heart Benefit Reading for The Public

The one-night-only event will mark the Larry Kramer play's 40th anniversary.

March 25, 2026 By Logan Culwell-Block

Off-Broadway's Public Theater will mount a one-night-only benefit reading of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, an evening that will mark the landmark play's 40th anniversary. The event, which will be directed by Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright Tony Kushner, will be held April 27 in the company's Barbaralee Theater. Casting is to be announced.

The performance brings the semi-autobiographical play, which tracks the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s through the lens of the New York City activists that fought for its mostly queer victims, back to its original home. The work was first performed in 1985 at the Public's LuEsther Hall, later moving to the Anspacher (now the Barbaralee, hosting the anniversary reading). That production still reigns as the Public's longest-running onsite play. The work got a Broadway bow in 2011, and an HBO film adaptation in 2014.

Benefit tickets are available at PublicTheater.org. The company also plans to hold a ticket lottery that will offer theatregoers a chance to see the performance for $40. Details on that program are forthcoming.