Celebrating the birth & legacy of

TERRENCE MCNALLY

“I go to the theater to share humanity...it reminds me I’m a member of a very large community called the human race.”

— Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was a four-time Tony Award-winner whose work spans over five decades.

Michael Terrence McNally was born November 3, 1938 in St. Petersburg, Florida to Hubert and Dorothy McNally, two transplanted New Yorkers.  When he was eight years old, they took him to see Annie Get Your Gun, with Ethel Merman and The King and I, starring Gertrude Lawrence, which made a lasting impression.  In the fifth grade, McNally was introduced to opera by a teacher and spent Saturday afternoons listening to Live from the Met on the radio.

Another influence as a young man was Maurine McElroy, McNally’s high school English teacher who shared the world of poetry and classical music.  With her encouragement to attend college out of state, McNally received a scholarship to Columbia University.  Once in New York City, he attended theater and opera several nights a week which solidified his future career.

“It will always be hard to be truthful in our work but it’s the only thing that ultimately matters in the arts — and finally our lives. Is it honest?”

— Terrence McNally

During this time, he began a five-year relationship with playwright Edward Albee.  He also met Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck who asked him to write the book for the musical adaptation of East of Eden.

McNally’s first Broadway production, And Things That Go Bump in the Night opened in 1965 and ran for just 16 performances.  Undeterred by the negative reviews, he wrote Next in 1968 (starring James Coco and directed by Elaine May) about a married, middle-aged businessman who is mistakenly drafted into the army.  It was his first critical and financial success.  Other plays during this period (Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?, Sweet Eros, Witness) form a dark satire on American moral complacency.

McNally turned to comedy and farce with Noon (1968), Bad Habits (1971) starring Linda Lavin which won an Obie Award and The Ritz (1975) featuring Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller and F. Murray Abraham.  Although Broadway, Broadway (1978) was not well-received, in 1985 McNally rewrote the play as the wildly successful It’s Only a Play.

With the onset of the AIDS epidemic, McNally’s work took on an extraordinary poignancy.   His writing introduced audiences to characters and situations that most mainstream theater had previously shunted into comic asides. 

His collaboration with the Manhattan Theatre Club produced Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1987), The Lisbon Traviata (1989), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991) and Love! Valor! Compassion! (1994) which won the Tony Award for Best Play. 

His early love of music is a major influence on his writing.  He won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993) and Ragtime (1998).  He also won the Tony Award for Best Play for Master Class (1996), a character study of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas. 

Later works include the book for the musicals The Full Monty (2000), A Man of No Importance (2003) which was to conclude Actors Co-op’s 28th season before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Visit (2015) and Anastasia (2017). 

Terrence McNally received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2019.  

For McNally, the most important function of theatre was to create community and bridge rifts opened between people by differences in religion, race, gender, and particularly sexual orientation.  His thirty-three plays, nine musicals, three operas, and seven scripts for film and television, are a testament to his astonishing commitment to writing. Terrence McNally was a trailblazing figure and unique voice in American theater.

Terrence McNally died of coronavirus complications on March 24, 2020.

“McNally’s great gift is his flamboyant wit, but his comedy is permeated with an intimate understanding of the flip side of love — loss. The courage to keep loving in the face of disappointment and grief is the central dilemma of McNally’s characters, gay and straight alike.”

— Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times

Portions of this biography were taken from The New York Times and PBS’s American Masters.
 

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✨ Next week… ✨

We will celebrate the birth of Terrence McNally with a performance from one of his plays by Actors Co-op company member, David Atkinson!
This performance will be delivered to you for safe viewing at home, via email.

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