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“Angels in America” is a play that actors, directors and designers clamor to do. Tony Kushner’s script, subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” and broken into two separate long evenings (“Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika”), provides the richest of dramatic landscapes, blending modern social issues, religious iconography, real-life historical figures, romance, comedy, politics and family drama.

Yet few get the chance to perform this epic work outside of college theaters, which are just about the only places with the resources to do such an expansive work. (The Hartt School at the University of Hartford, for instance, is staging it Oct. 9 through 12 in the HPAC Kent McCray Theater; 860-768-4228).

So special huzzahs go to West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park for even attempting a professional production of “Angels in America” (or rather its “Part One: Millennium Approaches,” which is frequently produced independently of “Perestroika”) on a small-theater budget in a small-theater space.

When auditions were announced a few months ago, P-on-P was inundated with resumes. Auditions were held in Connecticut and New York, with the plum role of the hot-headed hypocrite Roy Cohn going to Jim Shankman, who played Sonny in the original 1970s New York production of “Grease” and who both wrote and performed his recent solo show “Kiss Your Brutal Hands.” Obie-winner Rae C. Wright, plays Hannah Pitt, a role she understudied in the 2011 revival of “Angels in America” at New York’s Signature Theatre Company. The cast also includes Kristen Harlow as Harper, James Parenti as Louis, Tim Hackney as Joe, Clark Beasley Jr. (from Playhouse on Park’s “Of Mice and Men”) as Belize and Olivia Hoffman as the play’s titular acrobatic Angel.

“ANGELS IN AMERICA PART ONE: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES” runs Oct. 1 to 19 at Playhouse On Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. Information; 860-523-5900 and playhouseonpark.org.