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Terrence McNally

 
American Theater Guide: Terrence McNally
 
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McNally, Terrence (b. 1939), playwright. A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, he studied at Columbia. His early plays included Next (1969), Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone? (1971), and Bad Habits (1973), but it was the popular farce The Ritz (1975) that most firmly established him. McNally was one of the most produced American playwrights during the 1980s and 1990s with many productions Off Broadway and in regional theatres. Among the noteworthy plays of that period were The Lisbon Traviata (1985), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1987), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), A Perfect Ganesh (1994), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), Master Class (1995), and Corpus Christi (1998). McNally also began to write librettos for musicals with The Rink (1984), followed by Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), Ragtime (1998), The Full Monty (2000), and A Man of No Importance (2002). His plays tend to be about contemporary, urban, and usually gay characters in a loosely plotted tale filled with vibrant dialogue. McNally's librettos (mostly adaptations of other works), on the other hand, are tightly structured, economically plotted, and true to their source material.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Terrence McNally
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(born Nov. 3, 1939, St. Petersburg, Fla., U.S.) U.S. dramatist. He worked as a newspaper reporter, as tutor for the children of John Steinbeck, and as stage manager at the Actors Studio. His plays, which explore relationships and are often characterized by dark humour, include Bad Habits (1971), Master Class (1995), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994; film, 1997), the controversial Corpus Christi (1998), and Deuce (2007). He wrote the book for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993) and Ragtime (1996).

For more information on Terrence McNally, visit Britannica.com.

 
Works: Works by Terrence McNally
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(b. 1939)

1964And Things That Go Bump in the Night. McNally's first produced play opens at Minnesota's Guthrie Theater and in New York in 1965. It dramatizes a family who shut themselves into a bomb shelter in the cellar.
1968Sweet Eros. McNally's play about a man who kidnaps a woman and ties her to a chair to tell her his maladjusted life story features a performance by Sally Kirkland as the captive; she becomes the first New York actress to appear nude throughout an entire play.
1971Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone? Many consider this play about a young man's development and the conflicts that he faces in the 1960s as one of McNally's greatest achievements.
1974Bad Habits. This double bill of the complementary one-act plays Ravenswood and Dune Lawn, both set in sanatoriums and describing contrary treatments of mental illness, had been initially produced off-Broadway in 1971 before reaching Broadway.
1975The Ritz. McNally's greatest popular success is this farce, set at a steambath catering to homosexuals; a man fleeing from his murderous brother-in-law goes there to hide.
1987Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. A middle-aged man and woman, wary of each other because of many disappointments, gradually explore the possibility of a life together. A comedy, it also has serious overtones expressing McNally's wry sensibility and compassion for his characters. Critics praise the play for honestly portraying its characters' valiant efforts to overcome their sense of injury.
1989Lisbon Traviata. Concerned with the dynamics of gay life, this play centers on four men who argue the merits of the opera diva Maria Callas. The subtext is their own lives and concerns about fleeting relationships and betrayals. Critics admire McNally's wry sensibility and his ability to balance social criticism with character development.
1991Lips Together, Teeth Apart. This drama takes place on July 4 at Fire Island, where Sally and Sam host his sister and her husband. Amid comic dialogue, the characters debate class differences, homophobia, and the dread of death. McNally's work wins considerable praise for dealing with tragic issues with brio.
1994Love! Valour! Compassion! McNally, the master of ensemble performances, brings eight gay men together during summer holidays in the home of an aging choreographer and his young companion. They explore the nature of masculine love and friendship and the search for solidarity. A Tony Award winner, the play is considered one of McNally's major achievements.
1995Master Class. McNally's play re-creates a class taught by the opera diva Maria Callas as she reminisces about her great career. Critics find the play an extraordinary animation of the artist's biography and sensibility and a deeply romantic work about a suffering artist.
1998Ragtime. McNally provides a remarkably faithful adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's 1975 novel, working in fascinating vignettes of historical figures such as Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford.
1999Corpus Christi. This controversial play, a retelling of the Christ story from a gay perspective and featuring a gay Jesus, is attacked as anti-Christian. Critics, however, find no mockery in the drama and instead are impressed with the way the playwright integrates his characters' moral and sexual natures.

 
Wikipedia: Terrence McNally
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This article is about the playwright. For the actor, see Terrence E. McNally.
Terrence McNally
Born November 3, 1939 (1939-11-03) (age 69)
St. Petersburg, Florida
Occupation Playwright
Nationality United States

Terrence McNally (born 3 November 1939) is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[1] He has been a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and has served as vice-president since 1981. McNally is married to Thomas Kirdahy.[2]

Contents

Early life

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, McNally moved to New York City in 1956 to attend Columbia University, where he majored in English, graduating in 1960, the same year in which he gained membership into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He worked briefly for the alumni magazine Columbia College Today.

Early career

After graduation, McNally moved to Mexico to focus on his writing, completing a one-act play which he submitted to the Actors Studio in New York for production. While the play was turned down by the acting school, the Studio was impressed with the script, and McNally was invited to serve as the Studio's stage manager so that he could gain practical knowledge of theater. In his early years in New York, he was a protégé and lover of the noted playwright Edward Albee.

In 1968, McNally asked that his name be removed from the credits for what would have been his first major project, the musical Here's Where I Belong. His decision proved to be a wise one, as the show closed after one performance. Although several early comedies such as Next in 1969 and The Ritz in 1975 won McNally critical praise, it was not until later in his career that he would become truly successful with works such as his off-Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and its screen adaptation with stars Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Broadway

His first credited Broadway musical was The Rink in 1984, a project he entered after the score by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb had been written. In 1990, McNally won an Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Miniseries or Special for Andre's Mother, a drama about a woman trying to cope with her son's death from AIDS. A year later, he returned to the stage with another AIDS-related play, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, a study of the irrational fears many people harbor towards homosexuals and people who have the disease. In the play, two married couples spend the Fourth of July weekend at a summer house on Fire Island. The house has been willed to Sally Truman by her brother who has just died of AIDS, and it soon becomes evident that both couples are afraid to get in the swimming pool once used by Sally's brother.

With Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1992, McNally returned to the musical stage, collaborating with Kander and Ebb on a script which explores the complex relationship between two men caged together in a Latin American prison. Kiss of the Spider Woman won the 1993 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. He collaborated with Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens on Ragtime in 1997, a musical adaptation of the E.L. Doctorow novel, which tells the story of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a fiery black piano man who demands retribution when his Model T is destroyed by a mob of white troublemakers. The play also features such historical figures as Harry Houdini, Booker T. Washington, J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford.

McNally's other plays include 1994's Love! Valour! Compassion! which examines the relationships of eight gay men; and Master Class (1995), a character study of legendary opera soprano Maria Callas which won the Tony for Best Play.

In 1997, McNally stirred up a storm of controversy with Corpus Christi, a modern day retelling of the story of Jesus' birth, ministry, and death in which both he and his disciples are portrayed as homosexual. In fact, the play was initially cancelled because of death threats from extremist religious groups against the board members of the Manhattan Theatre Club which was to produce the play. However, several other playwrights such as Tony Kushner threatened to withdraw their plays if Corpus Christi was not produced, and the board finally relented. When the play opened, the theatre was besieged by almost 2000 protesters, furious at what they considered blasphemy. When Corpus Christi opened in London, a British Muslim group called the Defenders of the Messenger Jesus even went so far as to issue a fatwa sentencing McNally to death.[3] On January 19, 2008, Robert Forsyth, Anglican bishop of South Sydney condemned "Corpus Christi" (which opened for February's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, a play depicting Judas seducing Jesus): "It is deliberately, not innocently, offensive and they're obviously having a laugh about it." The play also showed Jesus administrating a marriage between two male apostles. Director Leigh Rowney accepted that it would offend some Christians and said: "I wanted this play in the hands of a Christian person like myself to give it dignity but still open it up to answering questions about Christianity as a faith system."[4]

Deuce, a new McNally play, started previews on April 11, 2007. Directed by Michael Blakemore, it stars Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes.

Writing credits

Plays:

Musical Theatre:

Opera:

Film:

TV:

Awards

References

  1. ^ "And Then One Night, The Making of Dead Man Walking: Creative Process: The Players: Terrence McNally: Biography". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/kqed/onenight/creativeprocess/players/mcnallybio.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-19. 
  2. ^ "WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Terrence McNally, Thomas Kirdahy". New York Times. 2003-12-21. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06EED7143FF932A15751C1A9659C8B63. Retrieved on 2007-04-19. 
  3. ^ "Fatwa for 'gay Jesus' writer". BBC News. 1999-10-29. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/493436.stm. Retrieved on 2007-04-19. 
  4. ^ Afp.google.com, Row erupts in Australia over 'gay' Jesus play: report

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Copyrights:

American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Terrence McNally".  Read more

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