Columbia College Chicago Theatre alums are in the cast and production team of Invictus Theatre‘s production of Tony Kushner‘s landmark drama Angels in America, running June 13 through September 7 at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. For tickets, click here.

Set in New York City in the mid-1980s as the AIDS epidemic was becoming widespread, Kushner’s two-part epic consists of two full-length plays performed in repertory: Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, and Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika. The performance schedule allows audiences to see the two parts in sequence on the same day, or on successive days. The same cast appears in both plays.

The show’s cast includes Columbia College Theatre alums Ryan Hake ’14, Nicki Rossi ’24, and Anne Trodden ’09, all graduates of the Acting BA program.

Hake plays Prior, a young gay man diagnosed with AIDS.

Rossi plays The Angel, an imposing, terrifying, divine presence who descends from Heaven to bestow prophecy on Prior. Trodden plays Harper Pitt, the wife of a closeted gay attorney who cheats on her with Prior’s unfaithful lover.

The show’s production team includes Columbia College Theatre alum Kevin Rolfs ’17, a graduate of the Theatre Program’s BA Program in Theatre Design, who is the production’s scenic designer and assistant director. As previously reported in this blog, Rolfs won a 2023 Joseph Jefferson (“Jeff”) Award, Chicago theatre’s highest honor, for his scenic design for Invictus Theatre’s production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Also on the production team is Columbia College alum and faculty member Petter Wahlbäck ’00, MFA ’08, a graduate of the Columbia College Chicago Music Program’s BA Program in Music Composition and MFA Program in Music Composition for the Screen. Wahlbäck is the show’s sound designer and composer. As previously reported in this blog, Wahlbäck won a 2019 Jeff Award for his sound design for The Artistic Home’s production of Requiem for a Heavyweight.