A new stage production revisiting the charged dynamic between playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer and Dr. Anthony Fauci is set to debut early next year in New York.
According to The Associated Press, “Kramer/Fauci” will run Feb. 11–21 at The Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be directed by Tony Award-winner Daniel Fish and feature Will Brill, fresh off his Tony-winning performance in “Stereophonic,” alongside Thomas Jay Ryan, known for the film “Henry Fool.”
Fish is building the play around the transcript of a 1993 C-Span confrontation between Kramer and Fauci, an on-air debate that drew call-in questions from around the country. He said the choice was rooted in how that exchange captured the tension, politics, and urgency of the era.
“I’m looking at a particular moment in time, at a particular exchange that has resonances into their relationship, has resonances into the politics and culture of the time, and seeing what happens when we do that now,” Fish said.
Kramer and Fauci clashed publicly for years as the AIDS crisis deepened in the 1980s and ’90s. Kramer, author of “The Normal Heart” and founder of ACT UP, pressed federal officials for faster action and wider access to treatments. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged a methodical approach rooted in clinical process.
Their disagreements often turned personal, but their relationship evolved. During the 1993 exchange, Kramer described Fauci in stark terms that reflected both admiration and frustration. “He is a man, an ordinary man, who is being asked to play God,” he said. “And he is being punished because he cannot be God. And that is a terrible position to be in.”
Fauci would later return to the national spotlight during the coronavirus pandemic, again becoming a central figure in a major public health crisis.
Fish said he rediscovered the 1993 segment after Kramer died in 2020 and was struck by the emotional force of the conversation. “I just thought it was really compelling, and it kind of just stayed with me,” he said. “And after a while I thought, ‘I wonder what would happen if we made a performance out of this?’”
The director emphasized that audiences should not expect a strict reenactment. While the original conversation took place with Kramer appearing remotely from New York and Fauci in a Washington studio, Fish plans to stage all three participants — Kramer, Fauci, and the moderator — together in one room.
The script will follow the rhythm of the original exchange, including moments when the two men openly wrestled with their complicated bond. As Kramer put it during the broadcast, “You know, I love Tony Fauci,” before later adding, “Tony, when you talk like that, I hate you.” Fauci replied, “I know you do, Larry.”
