The Normal Heart Playtext

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by Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer's passionate, polemical drama is set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. It follows the efforts of one man, while his friends are dying around him, to break through a conspiracy of silence, indifference and hostility from public officials and the gay community, and gain recognition for a disease that threatens to change everything. 

This definitive edition, with a revised text and new introductory material, was published twenty-five years after the play's 1986 British premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London. A quarter of a century after that premiere, the play's prescience and its searing emotional power are beyond doubt. 

The play’s 2011 Broadway revival opened to an ecstatic critical reception, and won the Tony Award for Best Revival. It was adapted for television by HBO in 2014, with a cast includng Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts, and went on to win numerous awards, including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie.