Terrence McNally

Who is Terrence McNally?

Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Several of his plays have been turned into successful movies.

Many of McNally's plays deal with gay themes, and he believes that theatre has made important contributions to the present day acceptance of gay people as full and equal members of society. Although he laughs off the existence of a "Gay Mafia" he says, "... fortunately, there are a lot of writers, like myself, who are slowly changing people’s minds by changing their hearts first."

He has been a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild since 1970 and served as vice-president from 1981 to 2001. McNally was partnered to Thomas Kirdahy following a civil union ceremony in Vermont in 2003, and they subsequently married in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2010.