Better Angels

July 15, 1871. Deathly ill, 18-year-old Tad, the youngest son of Abraham Lincoln, reflects on his long bygone White House days, and his emancipation from the notion that a life of rank and privilege is a veritable fairy-tale in which all complications are somehow magically eluded. His reflections take the form of a log, his last and only hope of somehow keeping a promise made to his grief-striken mother after the deaths of his brother, her favorite child, and his beloved father - a promise never to leave her. Though based in fact, Better Angels is far less concerned with literal truth than with the truths of the heart. Told with rustic puppets, shadows, projections, and period music, Tad's is the story of a boy whose growing pains mirrored those of the nation itself, and of a family near mythic yet all too human.  

Winner of American Alliance for Theatre and Education Unpublished Play Project

“This is a heavy plate being served.  Kornhauser gives it his usual dash of fun and silliness here and there, but he knows this is a dark subject. And he doesn’t flinch from it…I was impressed with the way the play is able to articulate moments of history, and counterweight them with personal feelings between parents and children, and brothers…Amazingly powerful.” ~ New Era

“…Presents a little-examined viewpoint brought to vivid life.  …Kornhauser’s ability to climb into a child’s head and explain what he finds there in striking, visual detail has been proven time and time again.” ~ Sunday News