Playwright Terrence McNally Dies Of Complications Due To Coronavirus – Deadline

Acclaimed playwright Terrence McNally has died of complications due to coronavirus. The author of Master Class, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Love! Valour! Compassion!, among many other major works, was a lung cancer survivor with chronic pulmonary disease, and died today at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 81.

McNally’s death was confirmed by his spokesperson Matt Polk. The Tony Award-winning playwright was 81, and is survived by his husband, Broadway producer Tom Kirdahy.

A four-time Tony Award winner, recipient of the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, and 1994 Pulitzer Prize nominee, McNally wrote landmark and popular plays and musicals including Master Class, Ragtime, The Ritz, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, The Full Monty, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Rink and And Things That Go Bump in the Night. His more recent productions include Anastasia and Mothers and Sons.

With his death, McNally becomes the most notable victim of COVID-19.

McNally’s body of work was not only praised by critics and embraced by audiences, it stands as a landmark in gay theater, with frank and affectionate portrayals of gay life dating back at least to 1975’s bathhouse-set comedy The Ritz and continuing through such productions as Love! Valour! Compassion!, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Mothers and Sons, The Lisbon Traviata and Lips Together, Teeth Apart. The latter play, debuting Off Broadway in 1992 with a cast starring Christine Baranski, Swoosie Kurtz, Nathan Lane and Anthony Heald, dealt obliquely but movingly with the subject by following two heterosexual couples as they spend a Fourth of July weekend at Fire Island Pine in a house one of the women inherited from her AIDS-stricken brother.

Perhaps most controversially, McNally authored 1997’s Corpus Christi, a contemporary take on the New Testament in which Jesus and his disciples were portrayed as gay men. Threats of violence against the Manhattan Theatre Club prompted the temporary cancelation of the production, drawing outrage from the theater community. The play ultimately was staged, with picketers protesting outside.

“Heartbroken over the loss of Terrence McNally,” tweeted Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, “a giant in our world, who straddled plays and musicals deftly. Grateful for his staggering body of work and his unfailing kindness.”

Following his Broadway debut in 1965 with the poorly received And Things That Go Bump in the Night, McNally focused on one-act Off Broadway plays, the most widely known of which was Next, a 1967 play directed by Elaine May.

McNally would go on to win four Tony Awards, including for plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, and the books for musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman and and Ragtime. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1994 for A Perfect Ganesh.

McNally’s roster of credits, featuring many developed at the Manhattan Theater Club,  include: Anastasia (2017), Mothers and Sons (2014), It’s Only A Play (2014), Catch Me If You Can (2011), Master Class (2011, 1995), Ragtime (2009, 1998), The Ritz (2007, 1983, 1975), The Stuff of Dreams (2005), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2002), The Full Monty (2000), Corpus Christi (1997) Love! Valour! Compassion! (1995), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), The Lisbon Traviata (1989), The Rink (1984) and And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1965).

Film credits include The Ritz (1976), Frankie and Johnny (1991) and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997). For television he wrote TV: Andre’s Mother (1990), The Last Mile (1992), Common Ground (2000) and Mama Malone (1984).

A passionate devote of opera – as evidenced in The Lisbon Traviata starring Nathan Lane as a diehard fan of Maria Callas – McNally wrote the librettos to The Food of Love (1999), Dead Man Walking (2000), Three Decembers (2008), andGreat Scott (2015).

In addition to his husband, McNally is survived by brother Peter McNally and his wife Vicky McNally, their son Stephen McNally and his wife Carmen McNally and their daughter Kylie McNally, and extended family.

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