McNally, Terrence

McNally, Terrence (b. 1939), playwright. A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, he studied at Columbia. His early plays included Next (1969), Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone? (1971), and Bad Habits (1973), but it was the popular farce The Ritz (1975) that most firmly established him. McNally was one of the most produced American playwrights during the 1980s and 1990s with many productions Off Broadway and in regional theatres. Among the noteworthy plays of that period were The Lisbon Traviata (1985), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1987), Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), A Perfect Ganesh (1994), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), Master Class (1995), and Corpus Christi (1998). McNally also began to write librettos for musicals with The Rink (1984), followed by Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993), Ragtime (1998), The Full Monty (2000), and A Man of No Importance (2002). His plays tend to be about contemporary, urban, and usually gay characters in a loosely plotted tale filled with vibrant dialogue. McNally's librettos (mostly adaptations of other works), on the other hand, are tightly structured, economically plotted, and true to their source material.