Who

One of the most prominent playwrights working today, McNally is known for both mainstream hits like Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and for spotlighting gay issues in works like Love! Valour! Compassion!

Backstory

Raised in Texas, McNally moved to New York to attend Columbia and earned his first break a year after graduation when he submitted one of his plays to the Actor's Studio: Although the theater ultimately passed on the work, they invited him to join the company as a stage manager. He soon became the protégé (and the lover) of playwright Edward Albee, not that Albee's tutelage earned McNally much success in his early years as a playwright. His And Things That Go Bump in 1965 closed after just two weeks on Broadway, and Here's Where I Belong shuttered after its opening night. By the late '70s, McNally's career was in tatters but Lynne Meadows, artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club, helped rescue him from his slump. His first big hit was 1987's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; the first run starred Kathy Bates, and a film adaptation starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer followed in 1991. A string of other hits followed, including Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1994 and Master Class in 1995. Many of McNally's works have featured his friend and one-time muse, Nathan Lane.

Of note

McNally is regarded as one of the foremost chroniclers of gay life: Several years before Tony Kushner and Jonathan Larson, he was one of the first playwrights to tackle the AIDS epidemic head-on in works like Andre's Mother (1990) and Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991). He's probably best known for his 1994 work Love! Valour! Compassion!, the story of eight gay men who convene over the course of a summer. The original stage version starred Nathan Lane, although in the 1997 movie version Lane was replaced by, of all people, Seinfeld's Jason Alexander. In addition to his many plays, McNally has also written the libretti for several musicals, including The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Full Monty, and Ragtime. Next up: McNally is collaborating with Hairspray songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman on a Broadway version of Catch Me If You Can, adapted from Steven Spielberg's 2002 film.

Controversy

McNally's 1997 play Corpus Christi, a gay retelling of the story of Jesus, stirred up a furor and was initially cancelled when the board of Manhattan Theater Club received death threats. The play eventually opened, but was besieged by protesters. McNally's revisionist take on the life of Christ didn't manage to offend only Christians; when the play premiered in London in 1999, a Muslim group issued a death fatwa against McNally.

Medical file

McNally survived lung cancer in 2001.

Personal

In addition to his seven-year relationship with Edward Albee, he also dated playwright Gary Bonasorte until his death in 2000. McNally married his current partner, public-interest lawyer-turned-Broadway producer Thomas Joseph Kirdahy, in 2003. The couple lives in the East Village, and has a summer home in Sag Harbor.

No joke

McNally once worked as a tutor for John Steinbeck's children.

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