Any number of times in the past three months, Ed Fernandez, the artistic director of Ephrata Performing Arts Center, has asked himself, "Whose idea was this anyway?"

Fernandez had long wanted to produce the two-part "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," Tony Kushner's epic, critically acclaimed plays about America in the 1980s as it faced the AIDS crisis.

The two plays, which opened in the early 1990s, sweep through an America rich with faith, hope, corruption, hypocrisy, politics, ghosts, betrayal, tragedy, gay and straight Jews, Christians and Mormons, real and fictional characters, as well as otherworldly ones, and a vein of humor that is deep and often biting.

"He's a brilliant writer and 'Angels' is this great theatrical stew of this country, told in a fantastic way. I admire it because it's so ambitious," Fernandez says. "It's everything I love about theater in one big play. And I always thought it would be great to do at EPAC."

But the road to getting the two plays, "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika," up and running has been a bumpy one.

"There were times when I was so scared of this, and so stressed out, I was convinced we had to cancel," says Fernandez, who is directing both shows.

Actors were overwhelmed and left the show, other roles seemed impossible to fill.

And EPAC had just been through internal restructuring battles.

"We lost a managing director and we lost a board member," Fernandez says. "Money was a real issue."

Could Kushner's overwhelming artistic ambitions be fulfilled? And will "Angels," which takes up two slots in the new season, find an audience?

Those questions will be answered soon.

"Millennium Approaches" opens Thursday and runs through March 16; "Perestroika" opens March 28 and runs through April 6.

Staging both parts of "Angels in America" in the same season, which is rarely done, is a huge commitment for any theater, let alone a community theater.

"This is the biggest thing we've ever done," Fernandez says. "But the plays are so interconnected, we knew we had to do it this way."

Getting a sponsor seemed impossible.

But in late fall, then EPAC board president Jim Ruth talked to Phil Goropoulos, president and CEO of Alder Health Services, which works with people living with HIV/AIDS, the LGBT community and those struggling with addiction.

Alder agreed to sponsor both shows, knowing it would bring focus to the still-serious HIV/AIDS struggle.

"Once we got a sponsor, there was no turning back," Fernandez says.

There are five men and three women in the cast.

The women got cast quickly, the men took a little longer, but by mid-December, every role was cast except for Belize, an African American nurse and former drag queen. The actor Fernandez hoped to cast was suddenly unavailable.

But with so much to do, the incomplete cast got started, working around the Belize scenes.

After not being able to find anyone locally, Fernandez put an ad in a national magazine in early January, which cost the always-struggling theater a lot of money. A number of New York-based actors wanted the role, but it went to Adam Newborn, of Hershey.

Rehearsals then started with the full cast. But that full cast didn't last long.

First the stage manager left, saying he needed more money. They got Ally Ortiz to take over. No problem.

Then the actor playing Louis, a gay man who can't deal with his partner's HIV status and leaves him, quit.

"He was overwhelmed," Fernandez says. "He said he wasn't sure he could really do it. So I went with my second choice, (EPAC veteran) Bob Breen. He had to catch up, but he's fantastic. I really like what he's doing with the character."

Then the actor playing Joe, a deeply closeted Mormon with a Valium-addicted wife who has hallucinations, had to leave for personal reasons.

"Now I am freaking," Fernandez says. "I wanted to close shop."

But the cast kept going.

"I always thought it would work out," says Kristie Ohlinger, who is playing a nurse, a street person and an angel. "Let's plow ahead and see what we can do. It's too good and too big a project to let it fail."

With 7 1/2 hours of stage time to fill, there was plenty to do.

Fernandez asked Pat Kautter, who has directed at EPAC in the past, if she would come aboard as assistant director.

"Normally, I'd have thought long and hard before I said yes, but with 'Angels' I agreed right away," Kautter says. "I do like this play and Kushner's writing. It gets you to look at things, at how people are living."

For quite some time, the rehearsals went on without an actor playing Joe.

"I never once heard complaints from this group of actors," says Rich Repkoe, vice president of the board. "We do our best work when we are under duress and challenged. We come together like a family."

And so rehearsals went on through January. But a Joe had to be found.

Unable to find a community actor, Fernandez asked permission from the board to hire an Equity actor. Again, more expenses for the struggling theater.

The board agreed and Fernandez thought he'd found his Joe.

But the actor felt the role was too much for him and backed out.

Then, in late January, Andy Kindig, who has worked at EPAC off and on for 20 years, agreed to play Joe.

His first day of work was Feb. 4, a month before opening.

"Andy was like the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle," Fernandez says.

Amy Carter, who plays Joe's wife, Harper, probably had the toughest time of it, reading with at least six different actors through rehearsals. But she was game.

"With every show, there are hurdles to cross," she says. "I'm just very thankful to be working with this talented group of people. And thankfully, we have Ed, who really communicates with his actors."

Kindig essentially had to learn lines from two long plays and do it quickly.

"It was a challenge at the beginning because there are a lot of words to memorize," Kindig says. "But it is still one person's journey, and once we started rehearsing Part 2, I realized it was not as hard as I thought it would be."

The rest of the now-complete cast includes:

• Daniel Greene as Prior Walter, Louis's partner, who is dying of AIDS and will become the central figure in "Perestroika" as a prophetlike figure.

• Richard Bradbury as Joe's boss, Roy Cohn, the very real Washington lawyer who became famous during the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s and lived his life denying he was gay, even as he was dying of AIDS.

• Elizabeth Pattey, who is playing the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, whom Cohn was instrumental in convicting and executing for being a Communist spy. She also plays Joe's mother and an old rabbi.

So why have all these folks put themselves through months of hard work and frustrations?

For Greene, it's Kushner's amazing writing.

His plays are filled with all different styles of theater, from kitchen-sink realism to camp, melodrama to epic, political to fantastical.

"It's theater at its best in all these different elements," Greene says. "And it's structure is so brilliant. There is so much here, so many topics Kushner knows so much about."

"There are so many levels of humor, of subtlety," Carter says. "It reaches the highest highs and the lowest lows."

And the roles are complex.

"Meaty doesn't even begin to cover it," Breen says.

"It's one of the bravest plays I've ever read," Newborn says. "The characters become brave; they stand tall."

"It pokes holes in everything. It offends equally," Ohlinger says. "It opens our eyes, our ears and our hearts."

"It makes people talk," Kindig says. "And that's what theater should do."

Don't think just because Fernandez got his cast in place that the troubles stopped. A week before the show was set to open, Fernandez discovered he lost his sound engineer. At press time, he was hopeful he'd found a new one.

"Angels in America" is for mature audiences.

"The language is salty and the themes are mature," Fernandez says. "But by today's standards, the show is tame."

Will it find an audience?

While everyone at EPAC certainly hopes so, it's not why they chose to do "Angels in America."

"We have a mission to put on theater that matters, not just theater for profit," Repkoe says. "That seems to be vanishing across the country. I'm proud of us for doing this."

"This play taps into the vital heart of our country and why we love it and why we hate it at times," Fernandez says. "It's about a particular time and place that defines us for all time. A dark, troubled time. But ultimately, 'Angels in America' is about hope."

jholahan@lnpnews.com