Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally November 3 1938 March 24 2020 was an American playwright librettist and screenwriter Described as the bard of American theatre and one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theatre world has yet produced McNally was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996 He received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award In 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States He received the Tony Award for Best Play for Love Valour Compassion and Master Class as well as the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime His other accolades included an Emmy Award two Guggenheim Fellowships a Rockefeller Grant four Drama Desk Awards two Lucille Lortel Awards two Obie Awards and three HullWarriner Awards His career spanned six decades and his plays musicals and operas were routinely performed all over the world He also wrote screenplays teleplays and a memoir Active in the regional and offBroadway theatre movements as well as on Broadway he was one of the few playwrights of his generation to have successfully passed from the avantgarde to mainstream acclaim His work centred on the difficulties of and urgent need for human connection He was vicepresident of the Council of the Dramatists Guild from 1981 to 2001 He died of complications from COVID19 on March 24 2020 at a hospital in Florida