Rest in Peace, Terrence McNally

[Helene]

From the LA Times, Terrence McNally has died of coronavirus complications:

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2020-03-24/terrence-mcnally-dead

 

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While most playwrights since World War II have arrived like comets, creating their signature scripts early in their careers, the arc of McNally’s writing life testified to the riches — especially insight, empathy, and a hesitance to judge flawed people too harshly — that came with maturity. He earned his first Broadway writing credit at age 23, and continued steadily from there into his 30s, establishing a reputation as an edgy and talented satiric playwright and farceur who consistently challenged and mocked authority during the Vietnam War era. But McNally’s streak of signature plays — the ones that won him awards and brought him to the front rank of American playwriting — didn’t begin until 1987, the year he turned 48.

Rest in peace, Terrence McNally.

[dirac]

I just saw this and was going to post. He was 81 with pre-existing lung problems. His writing gave me so much pleasure and joy over the years. He had a very good run, but even so, a great loss.

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McNally is survived by his husband, Tom Kirdahy, 57, whom he wed in 2003 in Vermont. The family requests donations to BC/EFA and the Dramatist Guild Society.

Zoe Caldwell, who played Maria Callas in McNally's "Master Class"  and acted for him in "A Perfect Ganesh" also died recently. McNally's tribute to her is here. It must have been one of the last things he wrote.

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Zoe Caldwell, Australia’s greatest gift to the theatre, has left us after a lifetime of service to eight shows a week. It was a career spent entirely on the boards: unamplified, unafraid, unforgettable. One acting partner described her as a force of nature. Another said they were afraid of being blown off the stage by the sheer force of her eyes looking into theirs.

 

[Helene]

McNally was also the librettist for the opera Dead Man Walking, which, at this point, might be one of the most performed American operas, after Porgy and Bess.