Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens

This celebration of lives lost to AIDS is told in free verse monologues with a blues, jazz and rock score. It is designed to include the community in a theatrical response to the AIDS crisis.

The songs and monologues were inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology." Each of the monologues is written from the perspective of characters who've died from AIDS. The songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss.

Lyrics by Bill Russell, music by Janet Hood, and directed by Shelley Cooper, Augustana assistant professor of theatre.