Authors

Home
Authors
M
Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally was the author of more than 50 plays, screenplays, and libretti.

He won five Tony Awards — Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, and Best Book of a Musical for Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was nominated for a Tony for Best Play for Mothers and Sons and for Best Book of a Musical for The Full Monty and The Visit. In 2019, he was awarded a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.

He won three Drama Desk Awards, and was nominated for nine more. He won two Obie Awards, one for Distinguished Play for Bad Habits and one Playwriting Award for Love! Valour! Compassion!. In 1994 he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for A Perfect Ganesh. He won two Lucille Lortel Awards — Outstanding Play for Lips Together, and Outstanding Body of Work.

He wrote a number of TV scripts, including Andre’s Mother, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was a member of the Dramatists Guild from 1970 on, and was twice the recipient of the Hull-Warriner Award for Best Play.

His work has been often performed and often revived. After his death in 2020, the New York Times noted, “Though the changes Mr. McNally wrote about were epochal for gay men, his plays were designed not to exclude. However furious, they are also ingratiating, emphasizing familiar situations, comic personalities and well-turned put-downs.” The same notice later identified “Mr. McNally ’s mature theme: that tragedy and comedy not only coexist but also, like all of us on earth, cohabit.”

Praise

“Mr. McNally is an extraordinary playwright. His plays are witty, compassionate and always written with a stunning love of the theatre.”
—Wendy Wasserstein

“Terrence McNally is one of our most original and audacious dramatists and one of our funniest.”
—The New Yorker

“We must be oh, so grateful for Terrence McNally, master of the high-wire act. His vision celebrates the bravery of lonely souls; his voice resounds with the anguish and joy of life itself. Out of the mundane, he shapes the opera of the human heart. I look with wonder at this body of work.”
—Swoosie Kurtz

“Mr. McNally is an extraordinary playwright. His plays are witty, compassionate and always written with a stunning love of the theatre.”
—Wendy Wasserstein

Awards

1975 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding New American Play (The Ritz)
1992 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding New Play (The Lisbon Traviata)
1992 Drama Desk Award Winner, Outstanding New Play (Lips Together, Teeth Apart)
1995 Drama Desk Award Winner, Outstanding Play (Love! Valour! Compassion!)
1996 Drama Desk Award Winner, Outstanding Play (Master Class)
1998 Drama Desk Award Winner, Outstanding Book of a Musical (Ragtime)
2001 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding Book of a Musical (The Full Monty)
2003 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding Book of a Musical (A Man of No Importance)
2006 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding Play (Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams)
2007 Drama Desk Award Nomination, Outstanding Play (Some Men)
1990 Emmy Award Winner, Outstanding Writing in a Miniseries or a Special (Andre’s Mother)
1992 Lucille Lortel Award Winner, Outstanding Body of Work (Terrence McNally)
1992 Lucille Lortel Award Winner, Outstanding Play (Lips Together, Teeth Apart)
1974 Obie Award Winner, Distinguished Play (Bad Habits)
1995 Obie Award Winner for Playwriting (Love! Valour! Compassion!)
1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Nomination (A Perfect Ganesh)
1993 Tony Award Winner, Best Book of a Musical (Kiss of the Spider Woman)
1995 Tony Award Winner, Best Play (Love! Valour! Compassion!)
1996 Tony Award Winner, Best Play (Master Class)
1998 Tony Award Winner, Best Book of a Musical (Ragtime)
2001 Tony Award Nomination, Best Book of a Musical (The Full Monty)