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Known For

Terrence McNally is known for:

  • Love! Valour! Compassion!
    Gregory invites seven friends to spend the summer at his large, secluded 19th-century home in upstate New York. The seven are: Bobby, Gregory's "significant other," who is blind but who loves to explore the home's garden using his sense of touch; Art and Perry, two "yuppies" who drive a Volvo and who celebrate their 14th anniversary together that summer; John, a dour expatriate Briton who loathes his twin brother James; Ramon, John's "companion," who is physically attracted to Bobby and immediately tries to seduce the blind man; James, a cheerful soul who is in the advanced stages of AIDS; and Buzz, a fan of traditional Broadway musicals who is dealing with his own HIV-positive status.
  • Frankie and Johnny
    Elvis plays Johnny, a riverboat entertainer with a big gambling problem. Donna Douglas plays Johnny's girl, Frankie. A fortune teller tells Johnny how he can change his luck. Enter a new lady luck played by Nancy Kovack and the cat fight begins.
  • Frankie and Johnny
    When Johnny is released from prison following a forgery charge, he quickly lands a job as a short-order cook at a New York diner. Following a brief fling with waitress Cora, Frankie develops an attraction for Cora's friend and fellow waitress Frankie. While Frankie resists Johnny's charms initially, she eventually relents when her best friend, Tim, persuades her to give Johnny a chance.

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Biography

Terrence McNally (November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theatre" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theatre world has yet produced," McNally was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996. He received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. He received the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, as well as the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. His other accolades included an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards. His career spanned six decades, and his plays, musicals, and operas were routinely performed all over the world. He also wrote screenplays, teleplays, and a memoir. Active in the regional and off-Broadway theatre movements as well as on Broadway, he was one of the few playwrights of his generation to have successfully passed from the avant-garde to mainstream acclaim. His work centred on the difficulties of and urgent need for human connection. He was vice-president of the Council of the Dramatists Guild from 1981 to 2001. He died of complications from COVID-19 on March 24, 2020, at a hospital in Florida.