03-25-2020, 02:19 AM
Terrence McNally
(November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter.
Described as "the bard of American theater"[1] and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced,"[2] McNally was the recipient of the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement,[3][4] the 2019 Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award,[5] 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.[6] In 1996, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.[7]
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.[8][9] 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.[10]
His career spanned six decades, and his plays, musicals, and operas were routinely performed all over the world.[11] The diversity and range of his work were remarkable, as McNally resisted identification with any particular cultural scene. Simultaneously 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.[12] His work centered on the difficulties of and urgent need for human connection. For McNally, the most important function of theatre was to create community and bridge rifts opened between people by differences in religion, race, gender, and particularly sexual orientation.[13]
In addition to his award-winning plays and musicals, he also wrote two operas, multiple screenplays, teleplays, and a memoir.[14][15]
He was a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and served as vice-president of it from 1981 to 2001. In 1998, McNally was awarded an honorary degree from the Juilliard School in recognition of his efforts to revive the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program with fellow playwright John Guare.[12] In 2013, he returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, where he was the keynote speaker for the graduating class of 2013 on Class Day.[16] He received an honorary degree from NYU in 2019.[17]
In an address to members of the League of American Theatres and Producers he remarked, "I think theatre teaches us who we are, what our society is, where we are going. I don't think theatre can solve the problems of a society, nor should it be expected to ... plays don't do that. People do. [But plays can] provide a forum for the ideas and feelings that can lead a society to decide to heal and change itself."[18] He died of complications from COVID-19 on March 24, 2020.[19]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_McNally][/url]
(November 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter.
Described as "the bard of American theater"[1] and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced,"[2] McNally was the recipient of the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement,[3][4] the 2019 Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award,[5] 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.[6] In 1996, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.[7]
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.[8][9] 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.[10]
His career spanned six decades, and his plays, musicals, and operas were routinely performed all over the world.[11] The diversity and range of his work were remarkable, as McNally resisted identification with any particular cultural scene. Simultaneously 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.[12] His work centered on the difficulties of and urgent need for human connection. For McNally, the most important function of theatre was to create community and bridge rifts opened between people by differences in religion, race, gender, and particularly sexual orientation.[13]
In addition to his award-winning plays and musicals, he also wrote two operas, multiple screenplays, teleplays, and a memoir.[14][15]
He was a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and served as vice-president of it from 1981 to 2001. In 1998, McNally was awarded an honorary degree from the Juilliard School in recognition of his efforts to revive the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program with fellow playwright John Guare.[12] In 2013, he returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, where he was the keynote speaker for the graduating class of 2013 on Class Day.[16] He received an honorary degree from NYU in 2019.[17]
In an address to members of the League of American Theatres and Producers he remarked, "I think theatre teaches us who we are, what our society is, where we are going. I don't think theatre can solve the problems of a society, nor should it be expected to ... plays don't do that. People do. [But plays can] provide a forum for the ideas and feelings that can lead a society to decide to heal and change itself."[18] He died of complications from COVID-19 on March 24, 2020.[19]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_McNally][/url]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.