Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally. November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020. , The playwright, librettist and screenwriter, whose career spanned six decades, lived and worker here from 1996 until his death in 2020. At the age of 18, he moved to New York City (from Corpus Christi, Texas, where he grew up) to attend Columbia University, and graduated in 1960. Just four years later, he made his Broadway debut as a playwright. Though unsuccessful, the play boldly explored gay theme, rare at the time, and foreshadowed his most important works, written during the AIDS crisis. After an early string of well-regarded comedies including “The Ritz”, he wrote his breakthrough play in 1987, “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune”, about the human need to connect. During the next decade, he wrote prolifically, including “Master Class” in 1995, a fictionalized account of Maria Callas and the sacrifices she made for art. McNally wrote librettos for several Broadway musicals, including “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1992) and “Ragtime” (1997), and won five Tony awards, and an Emmy Award (1990). He was also inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame (1996), and into the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2018).