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Millennium Approaches, Act One, Scenes 1–5

Joe Pitt is offered a job in the Justice Department by Roy Cohn. When Joe returns home to tell his wife, Harper, about the offer, he finds her in a state of worry. She begs Joe to turn down the job and Joe accuses Harper of having emotional problems. Louis Ironson panics when his lover, Prior Walter, reveals he has AIDS.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act One, Scenes 1–5

Millennium Approaches, Act One, Scenes 6–9

Joe finds Louis crying in the bathroom where they both work, and Louis teases Joe for being gay, which Joe denies. Harper appears in Prior’s dream, and he tells her Joe is gay. Later, Joe and Harper have a heated argument regarding Joe’s sexuality and Harper’s claim that she is pregnant. Louis and Prior have a conversation about whether Prior would hate Louis if he left. Roy Cohn visits his doctor and learns he has AIDS, a diagnosis he rejects.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act One, Scenes 6–9

Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 1–5

Prior, in pain, wakes Louis up and they go to the hospital. Joe finds Harper in a drug-induced terror and she says she is not sure if she’s going to have a baby and that Joe should go to Washington without her. At a bar, Roy encourages Joe to take the job. Louis cruises the park for sex with another man. Belize, Prior’s ex-lover, visits Prior in the hospital and learns that he has been hearing voices.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 1–5

Millennium Approaches, Act Two, Scenes 6–10

Louis teases Joe about his unhealthy diet and his conservatism, and Joe agrees to spend time with Louis. Later, Joe calls his mother, Hannah, and reveals that he is gay. Both couples—Joe & Harper and Louis & Prior—fight that night, culminating in Louis leaving Prior and Harper leaving Joe. Hannah plans to move to New York City.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act Two, Scenes 6–10

Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 1–4

Prior continues to hear voices in the hospital, and Louis begs Belize to tell Prior that he loves him. Harper hallucinates and learns that her pregnancy is false. Hannah arrives in New York and is directed to the Mormon Visitor’s Center.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 1–4

Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 5–7

Joe tells Roy that he cannot accept the job offer, and a heated argument ensues. Roy succumbs to the pain he has been hiding. Prior’s ancestors visit and say a messenger will come that night. Joe goes home with Louis. An Angel crashes into Prior’s room.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Millennium Approaches, Act Three, Scenes 5–7

Perestroika, Act One

Prior begs the Angel to go away, and Louis and Joe embrace passionately in Louis’s new apartment. Harper hallucinates in the park, and when Hannah answers the phone in Joe’s apartment, the police inform her they found Harper. When Prior calls Belize, Belize reveals that the closeted Roy has AIDS.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Perestroika, Act One

Perestroika, Act Two

Prior denounces the ill treatment of gay men in America and proclaims that he has been given a prophesy by the Angel. He flashes back to when the Angel appeared with her revelation and they had a passionate encounter. Belize accuses Prior of creating the Angel story as a metaphor to help him combat his disease.

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Perestroika, Act Three

Roy refuses to hand over his records to the disbarment committee. In the Mormon Visitor’s Center, Prior and Harper, nearly recognizing each other from their dreams, watch a show about a Mormon family. Joe and Louis discuss their relationship, in particular Joe’s Mormonism, and after Louis says he wants to see Prior, Joe decides to leave Louis.

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Perestroika, Act Four, Scenes 1–5

Joe worries that Roy will be upset when he visits him in his hospital room, but at first Roy gives Joe a father’s blessing and urges him to return to his wife, then suddenly becomes enraged and asks Joe to leave. Prior and Louis’s meeting does not go well. Later, Belize and Prior spy on Joe, until Joe recognizes Belize as Roy’s nurse, and Prior acts as a patient to avoid his suspicions. Louis pleads with Belize to tell Prior that he is no longer seeing Joe, but Belize scoffs. Joe visits Hannah, and Prior asks if Joe is Hannah’s son before quickly falling ill. Joe finds Harper and says he wants to return to her.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Perestroika, Act Four, Scenes 1–5

Perestroika, Act Four, Scenes 6–9

Prior asks Hannah if he is insane for having seen an Angel, but she explains that Mormonism is based on the visions that their founder encountered. Louis attacks Joe for his homophobic rulings on his court cases. Roy dies.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Perestroika, Act Four, Scenes 6–9

Perestroika, Act Five, Scenes 1–5

In Prior’s hospital room, Prior and Hannah are visited by the Angel, and Hannah tells Prior that he must wrestle the Angel, which concludes with Prior ascending a ladder to heaven. In heaven, Harper and Prior meet before Harper leaves. Roy’s ghost visits Joe, and when Harper returns home, she tells him that she has been in Paradise with a friend.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Perestroika, Act Five, Scenes 1–5

Perestroika, Act Five, Scenes 6–10 & Epilogue

When Prior awakens back in his bed, he thanks Hannah for saving his life, says goodbye to her and Belize, and Louis asks Prior if he can return to him. Harper leaves Joe, and Prior tells Louis that even though he loves him, he can never come back. Harper describes a dream while on a flight to San Francisco in which the world is made whole again, and five years later, Prior, Louis, Belize, and Hannah sit by a fountain where Louis tells the story of an angel.

Read a full Summary & Analysis of Perestroika, Act Five, Scenes 6–10 & Epilogue

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