Terrence McNally was born in 1939 and grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas. Graduating from Columbia in 1960 with a degree in English, McNally enjoyed a fellowship in Mexico where he wrote a play that earned the attention of the Actors Studio and got him a job as a stage manager, allowing him to acquire some practical theatre experience. From the macabre to the farcical, the range of McNally's satire and drama borrows from his personal life and his personal understanding of the world. McNally's plays about homophobia, love, fear, and AIDS, among other things, illuminate the dominant theme of how people connect and fail to connect. Terrence McNally's most recent play, Mothers and Sons, opened on Broadway in March 2014 at the John Golden Theater and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. Other recent plays include Golden Age, And Away We Go, and Unusual Acts of Devotion. In 2011, his musical adaptation of Catch Me If You Can with a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman opened on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theater. In 2010 the Kennedy Center produced three of his plays under the title "Terrence McNally's Night at the Opera: Master Class, The Lisbon Traviata, and the world premiere of Golden Age. His musical adaptation of Fredrich Durrenmatt's The Visit, with the score by John Kander and the lyrics by Fred Ebb, was produced at Arlington's Signature Theatre. Recent plays include Deuce with Angela Lansbury and Marian Seldes on Broadway and Some Men at off-Broadway's Second Stage. He has won four Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Companion! (as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play and the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play) and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman (Kander & Ebb) and Ragtime. Recent Broadway credits include the revivals of his plays The Ritz and Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. His other plays include A Perfect Ganesh, Corpus Christi, Dedication or The Stuff of Dreams, The Stendhal Syndrome, Lips Together, Teeth Apart (Drama Desk Award Best New Play), and It's Only a Play. Earlier stage works include Bad Habits (Obie Award Best Play), Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?, . . . And Things that Go Bump in the Night, and Next. He also wrote the books for the musicals The Full Monty, The Rink (Kander & Ebb), and A Man of No Importance. The San Francisco Opera presented Dead Man Walking with McNally's libretto and music by Jake Heggie. McNally has written a number of TV scripts, including Andre's Mother for which he won an Emmy Award. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and is twice the recipient of the Hull-Warriner Award for Best Play. Despite the controversy surrounding some of his plays, Terrence McNally is one of the world’s most beloved and prolific modern-day playwrights.

To learn more about Terrence McNally, visit his website at TerrenceMcNally.com

The 2015 Terrence McNally Season will open with Lips Together, Teeth Apart. A gay community in Fire Island provides an unlikely setting for two straight couples who are discovered lounging poolside, staring out to sea. Through monologues unheard by the others, the characters reveal a desperate sense of individual isolation. The only people these four characters find more alien are the gay men partying in the houses on either side of them. As they divert themselves from their own mortality with food, cocktails, The New York Times crossword puzzle, fireworks, charades, and biting jabs at each other and the boys next door, Sally and Sam and John and Chloe find little to celebrate about themselves or their country on its birthday. Ted Hoerl makes his Eclipse directorial debut.

The 2015 McNally season continues with his Pulitzer nominated play, A Perfect Ganesh. On their journey for inner peace, two middle-aged women travel to India instead of to their more usual Caribbean vacation spots. They have chosen India as a way of healing from the deaths of their sons. While there, they meet a Hindu god, Ganesha, meaning "wisdom." Faced with the women's despair, who but the golden elephant god could intervene? Fluid in his power to assume any guise, at peace with all things, Ganesha is the spiritual center around which the play spins itself, drawing upon the tragic and the comic, the beautiful and the deplorable, until a breathtaking release arrives for both women at his hands. Ensemble Member Steven Fedoruk directs.

The 2015 Terrence McNally season will conclude with The Lisbon Traviata. This sharply funny yet deeply tragic story centers around a revealing conversation between depressed literary editor and opera fanatic, Stephen, and Mendy, a flamboyant opera queen. The two dish late into the night, distracting Stephen from his failing relationship with hilarious riffs on records, divas and more. But when Stephen returns home to confront his boyfriend, a tragedy unfolds on the scale of the grand opera he loves so much. Ensemble Member and Goodman Theatre Artistic Associate, Steve Scott directs.

As a subscriber, you'll also get to learn more about the life and work of Terrence McNally with free readings and events throughout the season. Details regarding our Playwright scholar series events will be announced in 2015.