Invictus Theatre‘s acclaimed production of Tony Kushner‘s landmark drama Angels in America, which features Columbia College Chicago Theatre alums in its cast and production team, has been extended through September 21 – two weeks beyond its originally scheduled closing date. Performances take place at Windy City Playhouse, 3014 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago. For tickets, click here.
Anne Trodden
Ryan Hake
As previously reported in this blog, the production features Columbia College Chicago Theatre alums Anne Trodden ’09 and Ryan Hake ’14, both graduates of the Theatre Program’s Acting BA program, who were singled out for praise by Chicago Tribune theatre critic Chris Jones in his review of the show.
“Anne Trodden . . . plays Harper, a young Mormon woman betrayed by her closeted conservative husband, Joe,” said Jones in his review, published July 22, 2025. “Not only does Trodden, who put me in mind of both Mary Louise Parker and Kate Fry, reflect this character’s mental fragility without resorting to cliché, she builds a deeply vulnerable and empathetic character.”
Ryan Hake
“And then there’s Ryan Hake as Prior Walter, the play’s spiritual seeker and moral conscience,” continued Jones. “[Hake] offers up one of the year’s great Chicago performances, deeply immersed in a character who has to . . . confront the inadequacy of all humans.”
Kevin Rolfs
Jones also praised the production overall, singling out the scenic design of Columbia College Theatre alum Kevin Rolfs ’17, a graduate of the Theatre Program’s BA Program in Theatre Design. “I’d go so far as to say this is the most powerful non-Equity production, all in all, I’ve seen since before the pandemic either wrecked or compromised so many of our small Chicago theater companies . . . thanks to both the scale of the performances and the possibilities explored by the set designer Kevin Rolfs, who seems to have conceived the play as taking place in the rubble of American democracy,” said Jones. To read the full review, 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.
