Display Curator
Dates: Fall, 2018
Venue: Harry Ransom Center
During the autumn of 2018, the Harry Ransom Center celebrated the 80th birthday of award-winning playwright Terrence McNally. McNally is one the most enduring and respected American playwrights, responsible for over 80 plays, musicals, and opera librettos over the past 50 years. His contributions to the theatre extend to his advocacy for playwriting as a profession and the mentorship of emerging artists. His works have helped launch the careers of some of America’s great actors, including F Murray Abraham, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, and Doris Roberts.
McNally’s writing was ahead of its time. When other writers might have given up in the face of early-career criticism, McNally not only persisted, but his style ultimately shaped American drama through works like Master Class, The Lisbon Traviata, and Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. His Andre’s Mother and Love! Valour! Compassion! humanized the AIDS crisis for audiences struggling to cope with the plague, and his Corpus Christi grappled with contemporary homophobia and hate crimes. Musicals like Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman expanded the possibilities of the form, and his opera Dead Man Walking is one of the most frequently produced contemporary American operas around the world. The hallmarks of McNally’s writing are his sharp wit, his complex characters, and stories that touch the core of the human experience. In 2018, McNally was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The honor of election is considered the highest form of recognition of artistic merit in the United States.
In 1999, McNally gifted his archive to the Ransom Center. Over the years, he has generously added to the papers, and the most recent addition includes manuscripts for his latest play, Immortal Longings, which premiered in 2019 at Austin’s ZACH Theatre in the spring of 2019. With an emphasis on his entire career and process, the display shared only a small fraction of the rich material his archive holds. Highlights included:
- Personal letters between McNally and his mentors John Steinbeck andhigh school English teacher Maurine McElroy.
- Early drafts of several works from And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1964) to Fire and Air (2018).
- Rehearsal recordings of songs in development from musicals like Ragtime (1996) and Anastasia (2016).
- Rare film clips of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1990), Andre’s Mother (1990), Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2002) and news footage of the protests surrounding Corpus Christi (1998).
- McNally’s four Tony Awards and his Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award .
Gallery view 
McNally visits the Ransom Center. Photo: Derek Rankins 
McNally visits the Ransom Center. Photo: Derek Rankins 
Postcard from Terrence McNally to his high school English teacher and mentor, Maurine McElroy. | Terrence McNally Collection, Harry Ransom Center 
Marquee of the Golden Theatre during the run of ‘Master Class.’ | Terrence McNally Papers, Harry Ransom Center 
Zoë Caldwell and Audra McDonald in ‘Master Class.’ | Terrence McNally Papers, Harry Ransom Center 
Early draft page from ‘Ragtime.’ | | Terrence McNally Papers, Harry Ransom Center 
Jake Heggie, Sister Helen Prejean, and Terrence McNally during work on the opera “Dead Man Walking” | Terrence McNally Papers, Harry Ransom Center 
Draft notebook for the musical ‘The Visit’ | Terrence McNally Papers, Harry Ransom Center 
Tom Kirdahy, Terrence McNally, and Eric Colleary. Photo: Derek Rankins
- Labels: Full exhibit label text for Terrence McNally at 80 (PDF)
- Review: ‘I Write Plays’: Walking Through The Terrence McNally Exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center (Hothouse)
- Article: Terrence McNally Weekend Thrills Theatrical Austin (Austin Statesman)
- Film: Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life, a PBS American Masters documentary which drew heavily on his archive at the Ransom Center
- Interview: Tangling with Texas and sexuality in Terrence McNally’s plays (Austin Statesman)