Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNallyis an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 November 1938
CitySt. Petersburg, FL
CountryUnited States of America
heart school writing
I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the heart.
writing thinking people
Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us.
writing play firsts
Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.
writing play nervous
There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.
heart writing play
Write plays that matter. Raise the stakes. Shout, yell, holler, but make yourself heard. It's time for playwrights to reclaim the theatre. We do that by speaking from the heart about the things that matter most to us. If a play isn't worth dying for, maybe it isn't worth writing.
mean sort written york
My first play was written when I was 23, and I'm 66 now, so that's 43 years of doing this where I sort of know where everything is. It doesn't mean I do everything right, but I know where everything is. Here, I'm very much a visitor. New York is my turf and I'm used to working with my actors.
certainty community theater york
The New York theater community is a place I know my way around in with some certainty,
oppression spoke standing time
It was a time of oppression and you spoke up -- and we won. Without you, I wouldn't be standing up here either.
fodder money network supportive treated writers
'American Playhouse' is very supportive of writers. That's really why writers like to write for 'American Playhouse' for very little money. They care about making your play, your script, not some network production. We're treated like playwrights, not like fodder for some machine.
people
With me, writing is 60% imagination, 30% people you know and 10% you don't know where it comes from.
core embrace passion quite trying turn understand
If you're trying to write something that you don't understand and embrace at the very core of you, it's not going to turn out with quite the authenticity and passion it should have.
written
This play was written for these 11 actors just as 'Master Class' was written for Zoe Caldwell, or 'Frankie and Johnny' was written for Kathy Bates,
bow british northern setting
I said if they wanted to keep the British setting in Northern England, then I will bow out, because that's not my lingo.
age audiences composers creation dance dancers golden great gym hope level life link looks mount order passion present reminds room side strongest talent technique theatre west worked
Chita Rivera is our strongest link to the Golden Age of the American Musical. She worked with all the great choreographers and composers and was present at the creation of such seminal masterpieces as The Dance at the Gym from West Side Story when the talent in the room was a veritable Mount Rushmore of the American theatre: Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins, Laurents and Prince. I hope our show reminds audiences of what that level of theatre was like and what it still can be if the talent, the technique and the passion are there. Chita Rivera: The Dancers Life looks back in order to look forward.