Latest role for famed playwright: Dr.

Tony Kushner can add another plume to his cap. On Thursday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by the University of Minnesota.

"Using a style at once experimental and traditional, Mr. Kushner's work mingles contemporary and historical politics with keen psychological insight into the complexities of interpersonal relationships," said Paula Rabinowitz, chairwoman of the university's English Department. "His work is big and messy ... like the nation."

He "represents the soul of the liberal arts -- or, as we might say, the liberating arts," said James Parente Jr., dean of the university's College of Liberal Arts. "He challenges audiences ... to see what has been hidden, face what has been feared, and open their minds and hearts to what has been shunned."

The honor came a day before the Guthrie Theater premiere of Kushner's latest play, "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures."

Kushner first used that title for a speech he delivered at the University of Minnesota in 1998.

"I planned to write a speech but that plan and that speech became a rewrite for the last scene of 'Intelligent Homosexual,'" he said Thursday. "I'm certain that I wouldn't have written this play had there not been a safe holding environment, a nest, the Guthrie."

Kushner lauded the "civic cohesion" of the Twin Cities in front of an audience that included the Guthrie's Joe Dowling, arts boosters George and Sally Pillsbury and physician Patricia Simmons, chairwoman of the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents.

He also was humble. "I'm sick of the subject of myself," he said, quoting his adaptation of Pierre Corneille's 17th-century play "The Illusion."

ROHAN PRESTON