About The Book

Since his first play, And Things That Go Bump in the Night, which premiered in 1965, McNally has proven himself to be a trailblazing figure in American theater, known for his exploration of gay themes and his chronicling of America’s changing social attitudes over the past fifty years. In Selected Works, for the very first time, McNally collects a set of eight plays that he considers the most important of his oeuvre, including the Tony-nominated Mothers and Sons and the critically acclaimed And Away We Go, neither of which have been previously published. Introducing each play with a personal essay that recounts an anecdote or discusses an aspect of the play that proceeds it, McNally himself frames his own life in the theater.

Praise

“Terrence McNally’s 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

“McNally is chronicling the revolutionary changes he has seen in the lives of gay Americans—and what playwright has more right to do so? McNally, seventy-five, who got married in 2010, writes here with the moral authority of one who has chronicled this fast-moving history in real, dramatic time.” —Chicago Tribune, on Mothers and Sons

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