2017 CONFERENCE GUEST SPEAKER

TERRENCE MCNALLY

Terrence McNally is a recipient of the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award.  He has won four Tony Awards for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. The Kennedy Center recently produced three of his plays under the title Terrence McNally’s Nights at the Opera: Master Class, The Lisbon Traviata, and the world premiere of Golden Age. He has written a number of TV scripts, including Andre’s Mother for which he won an Emmy Award.  He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1996 he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He recently wrote the book for the Tony-nominated musical, The Visit, which opened on Broadway in the spring of 2015 with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb.  He wrote the libretto for the opera Great Scott as well as Dead Man Walking, both with music by Jake Heggie.  His play It’s Only A Play opened on Broadway in the fall of 2014.  He is the writer of the book for the musical Anastasia, which is currently playing on Broadway. His newest play, Fire and Air, will open at Classic Stage Company in the winter of 2018. Other plays include Tony-nominated Best Play Mothers and Sons; And Away We Go; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Corpus Christi; The Ritz; Some Men; A Perfect Ganesh; and Deuce.