RT by @mikenov: Terrence McNally (b. 03 November 1938) was one of America’s most celebrated playwrights. A four-time Tony Award winner, his work explored love, sexuality, loneliness, and the desperate human need for connection. Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Terrence graduated from Columbia University in 1960. Early in his career, he traveled through Europe as a tutor to the children of novelist John Steinbeck. His first Broadway play, And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1964), was savaged by the critics, but McNally persevered, eventually becoming one of the American theater’s most respected voices. His breakthrough works included The Ritz (1975), a

Terrence McNally (b. 03 November 1938) was one of America’s most celebrated playwrights. A four-time Tony Award winner, his work explored love, sexuality, loneliness, and the desperate human need for connection.

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Terrence graduated from Columbia University in 1960. Early in his career, he traveled through Europe as a tutor to the children of novelist John Steinbeck. His first Broadway play, And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1964), was savaged by the critics, but McNally persevered, eventually becoming one of the American theater’s most respected voices.

His breakthrough works included The Ritz (1975), a farce set in a gay bathhouse, and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1987), a tender portrait of two lonely lovers. He won Tony Awards for Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), Master Class (1995), and the books for the musicals Kiss of the Spider Woman (1993) and Ragtime (1998).

Openly gay, McNally was among the first major American playwrights to place gay lives, relationships, and sexuality unapologetically at the center of mainstream theater. Love! Valour! Compassion! examined friendship, fidelity, and AIDS among eight gay men, while Mothers and Sons (2014) explored the lingering emotional devastation of the epidemic. His controversial Corpus Christi (1998), which portrayed Jesus and his disciples as gay men, unsurprisingly provoked religious protests and death threats.

McNally’s personal life included a relationship with playwright Edward Albee during the 1960s. McNally met Albee at a party on February 21, 1960, while he was a 19-year-old sophomore at Columbia University. Albee was ten years his senior and an emerging force in the theater world. McNally moved into Albee’s Greenwich Village apartment shortly thereafter, beginning a tempestuous, “alcohol-sodden” (according to Terrence) relationship that lasted roughly five years.

Albee was adamant about not being labeled or reviewed as a “gay playwright” and refused to publicly come out. Consequently, Terrence claimed he felt entirely erased, becoming completely invisible whenever the press was around or during Albee’s opening nights. Both men were also highly ambitious. Albee did not support Terrence’s budding playwriting career, disliking the idea of his partner competing with him in the same space.

Frustrated by the secrecy and the toll of the relationship, Terrence eventually ended things. To prevent running into one another in their tight-knit Greenwich Village neighborhood, Albee imperiously established strict geographic boundaries. He dictated that he would live east of 6th Avenue and instructed McNally to stay west of 7th. Terrence abided, only moving back to University Place decades later after Albee relocated to Tribeca. Despite the painful and destructive nature of their romantic years, Terrence and Ed eventually reconciled and forged a deep, supportive friendship that lasted until Albee’s death in 2016.

In June 2001, Terrence began a partnership with the Tony and Olivier Award-winning theatrical and film producer and former entertainment/AIDS rights lawyer, Tom Kirdahy. They were married three times as marriage equality laws evolved — a civil union in Vermont (2003), a legal wedding in Washington, D.C. (2010), and a ceremony at New York City Hall officiated by Mayor Bill de Blasio (2015). They remained together until Terrence’s death from complications of COVID-19 in Sarasota, Florida at age 81 on March 24, 2020.

In 2019, McNally received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. His legacy is that of a playwright who helped bring gay experience out of the theatrical margins and onto Broadway’s biggest stages, insisting that gay love, heartbreak, humor, and humanity deserved precisely the same attention as everyone else’s. 🏳️‍🌈

— @jmlx_john2 Nov 3, 2026