THEATER
Late Playwright Terrence McNally Hailed on Broadway
Four-time Tony winner remembered at Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
BY ANDY HUMM
Eighteen months after he
died of COVID, the life of
playwright Terrence Mc-
Nally was celebrated in a
packed house on November 1 at the
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Tributes
poured in from the theater artists
he so loved and nurtured, while Mc-
Nally’s own words were highlighted
from his plays, speeches, and personal
communications with friends.
For almost three hours, the theater
community laughed, refl ected,
reminisced, cried, and contemplated
the hole in our hearts in the
absence of this brilliant, passionate
voice and human being whose work
spanned more than six decades.
Jonathan Groff set the tone for
the service with a scene from Mc-
Nally’s “And Things That Go Bump
in the Night” that McNally brought
to Broadway in 1965 (with a gay
leading character!) when he was
25. “I know it’s fashionable being
morose,” the character says, “but I
love being alive!”
Audra McDonald had trouble
composing herself as she refl ected
on someone who was the lodestar
of her career and a friend — “He did
both of my weddings,” she said —
for 26 years. From “Master Class”
to “Ragtime” to a revival of “Frankie
and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,”
McDonald read comforting emails
from McNally that helped her overcome
some rough patches.
She quoted McNally, revealing,
“The main thing I feared in
the ‘Corpus Christi’ controversy
was losing my nerve.” That play
centered on a “gay Jesus” character
who brought bomb threats to
McNally’s theatrical home at the
Manhattan Theatre Club and sent
death threats to him. A scene was
performed with Joshua, played by
Tony winner Andrew Burnap of
(“The Inheritance”), marrying two
of his apostles (Telly Leung and
Dominic Cuskern.) “Respect the
divinity in your partner,” Joshua
tells the men — and McNally surely
did that in partners from actor
Robert Drivas (who later died of
AIDS) to Gary Bonasorte (who died
Terrence McNally was remembered by many during a memorial service at Schoenfeld Theatre on
November 1.
of AIDS in 2000) to the love of his
life, Tom Kirdahy, who put together
this splendid gathering.
Friend Edgar Bronfman, Jr. said
he had the honor of investing in
two of McNally’s “fl ops, which we
now call ‘worthy’ shows” — the fi rst
production of “It’s Only a Play” in
’78 and the musical of “The Visit”
in 2015. He also quoted McNally’s
wisdom: “Dance begins with courage,
not steps.”
McNally’s little brother, Peter,
talked about sharing a bedroom
with him for four years as kids in
Corpus Christi.
“He had posters of Maria Calls,
James Dean, and Shakespeare on
the wall,” he said, “and I was allowed
to have a small picture of
Mickey Mantle.” He spoke of the
magical visits to New York for his
brother’s opening nights and recalled
when McNally and Kirdahy
renewed their vows, which was
presided over by Mayor de Blasio at
City Hall in 2015.
Lin Manuel Miranda and John
Kander, two of Broadway’s greatest
composers, read from McNally’s
speech to the League of American
Theatres and Producers in 1991
when he talked about being taken
to Broadway from Texas by his parents
as a child to see Ethel Merman
in “Annie Get Your Gun” — something
that Nathan Lane would later
quip was “the primary cause of homosexuality
in the 1950s.”
Lane and John Benjamin Hickey
ANDY HUMM
performed a scene from “Lisbon
Traviata” about gay opera queens,
while soprano Angel Blue sang
“Ah! Non Credea Mirati” from Bellini’s
“La Sonnambula.”
Christine Baranski, yet another
“McNally actor,” read from his 1998
commencement speech at Julliard
urging the graduates to “make art
that matters and make yourself
heard” and telling them that “art
is the oldest way we have to try to
tell the truth about the world” —
words that informed the entirety of
McNally’s career.
Several speakers, including Jonathan
Lamma, talked about how
encouraging McNally was with
their young children when they expressed
interest in writing.
Lynne Meadow talked about
how she came to produce McNally’s
“Bad Habits” in 1973 at her
fl edgling Manhattan Theatre Club
and how their rich collaboration
endured for decades.
Murray Abraham, an Oscar
winner, (“Amadeus”) said, “He was
my champion!” and that getting
cast in “Frankie and Johnny” and
working with McNally was “the
luckiest day of my life.”
Playwright Matthew Lopez, who
received a Tony for “The Inheritance,”
said McNally was “a shape
shifter. There is no typical McNally
play.” He added, “I told Hal Prince I
wanted to be a playwright and he
gave me Terrence’s phone number.”
That led to an internship during
McNally’s “A Man of No Importance”
(2002) as well as mentorship, which
showed him “it was possible to be
gay and live a life of love
Tyne Daly performed a scene from
her turn as diva Maria Callas in
“Master Class” when she talks to a
group of Julliard students: “The work
we do matters. If you sing honestly
then I will feel repaid,” Daly said.
Video of McNally’s acceptance of
the Lifetime Achievement Award at
the 2019 Tonys had him saying,
“Not a moment too soon.” He was
on portable oxygen at the time.
McNally’s husband, Kirdahy,
was a lawyer helping people with
AIDS when they met and fell in love
in the Hamptons in 2001. Within
months, McNally told him that he
had lung cancer and that he did
not have to stick around, but Kirdahy
did for 20 more years.
“We held hands whenever we
could,” said Kirdahy, who spoke of
how McNally helped him realize his
potential and become one of Broadway’s
preeminent producers (Tonys
for “Hadestown” and “The Inheritance”).
He recounted the harrowing
story of getting his weakened
husband out of New York by car
when COVID hit in March 2020 because
McNally wanted to be on the
ocean in their Florida condo. Mc-
Nally did end up hospitalized with
COVID, given his many underlying
conditions, but Kirdahy lobbied
hard to be by his bedside in heavy
protective gear so they could hold
hands at the last moment.
“You words made the world a
safer, more beautiful place,” Kirdahy
said. There wasn’t a dry eye
in the house, but all felt embraced
by the love McNally left behind.
On Wednesday, November 3 at
3 p.m. a plaque was dedicated at
McNally’s former Village home at
29 East. Ninth Street by the private
Historic Landmarks Preservation
Center. Kirdahy, Tyne Daly,
and Brian Stokes Mitchell were on
hand.
Also on November 3, the lights
on Broadway were slated to be
dimmed at 6:30 pm in honor of
McNally on what would have been
his 83rd birthday.
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