The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is set to present Terrence McNally's Nights at the Opera - an event showcasing three of the playwright's works including Master Class, The Lisbon Traviata, and Golden Age concurrently in Kennedy Center theaters from March 20 - April 18, 2010. A handful of stage and film vets have been gathered for the project including John Glover and Malcolm Gets for "Traviata", Tyne Daly as Maria Callas in "Master Class," and Marc Kudisch and Jeffrey Carlson for "Golden Age."
In an interview with the Washington Post, published on March 14, McNally says he is relishing the experience the Kennedy Center is affording. "I feel very blessed and I'm enjoying the process," says McNally. "And the Kennedy Center is treating me like royalty," he adds.
The article also touches on McNally's lifelong affinity to opera. "McNally's relationship with opera is a lifelong romance, a passion that was ignited when he was a mere stripling in a Catholic elementary school in Dallas by a nun who brought in a recording of soprano Licia Albanese singing Puccini. "I just liked it right on the spot," he says over a dinner before "Onegin." "If there were 30 of us in the classroom, I was the one who loved it instantly."
In the article, McNally also discusses the reception that his work has received. Despite his many successes, McNally acknowledges that he has never felt well-liked by critics. "I've never felt like a critics' darling," he says, quickly summoning a memory from 45 years ago of the drubbing of his first Broadway play, "And Things That Go Bump in the Night." It opened April 26, 1965 and closed 12 days later. "I thought the reviews would say, 'flawed, uneven, by a vital, talented playwright,' " he recalls. "But one said, 'It would have been better if Terrence McNally's parents smothered him in his cradle.' Actually, two reviews of my first play mentioned my death."
To read the rest of the story in the Washington Post, please click here.
Playwright Terrence McNally has received four Tony Awards®, 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.
He won an Emmy Award® for his television film Andre's Mother in 1990. A year later, he returned to writing for the stage with Lips Together, Teeth Apart. In 1992, Mr. McNally collaborated with John Kander and Fred Ebb on the script for the 1993 Tony Award®-winning musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as on the script for the musical The Rink. Additionally, in collaboration with Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, he wrote the book for the musical Ragtime for which he won the 1998 Tony Award® for Best Book of a Musical. His other plays include Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1994, Corpus Christi in 1997, and the play and screen adaptation of Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.
Master Class, directed by Tony Award®-winner Walter Bobbie (Chicago), will appear in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater March 25 - April 18, 2010. The Tony Award®-winning play is Terrence McNally's homage to Maria Callas, world-renowned American-born Greek soprano. Inspired by a series of master classes she conducted at Juilliard, the play depicts the opera diva as she retreats into recollections about the glories, triumphs, and tragedies of her own life and career.
The Lisbon Traviata, directed by Christopher Ashley, will appear in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater March 20 - April 11, 2010. Deriving its title from an unauthorized recording of a 1958 Maria Callas performance in Lisbon which quickly became a collector's item, The Lisbon Traviata reflects on romantic obsession and diva worship. Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play.
