Muse of Fire

Terrence McNally is five-time Tony Award-winning playwright.Raymond-Jean Frontain is professor of English at The University of Central Arkansas and author of The Theater of Terrence McNally.

• Editor’s PrefaceIntroduction: “‘Flights of the Imagination, Journeys of the Heart’: McNally’s Idea of Theatre” by R-J. FrontainPrelude: “Make the Future Our Friend”I. “The things that connect us and make us human”: McNally on the Theater Arts* “The World Needs Artists: Juilliard Commencement Address”* “Where Are the Producers?: Address to the League of American Theater Producers”* “The Current State of Off-Broadway Theatre”* “The Perils and Pitfalls Awaiting the Playwright”* “Random Thoughts of a Librettist, or, Quick! Who Wrote the Libretto for Aida?”* “Monsters and Pussycats”* “Zoe Caldwell, Tyne Daly and Other ‘McNally Actors’”* “Gay Theater? No, Just Life”II. “Writers write”: McNally on Playwrights * Oscar Wilde* Tennessee Williams* Arthur LaurentsIII. “Art with restrictions is a contradiction in terms”: McNally on Censorship* “Art and My First Dirty Word”* “A Word from Terrence McNally” * “Remarks Delivered at a Rally to Support the NEA”* “Open Letter to Sa

One of America’s most revered (and on occasion reviled) playwrights and librettists, McNally succumbed to COVID-19 in March of 2020 at the age of 82. This volume, which was compiled by Frontain from speeches, columns, and other occasional writings by McNally, serves as a timely, fitting tribute to the author of such Tony Award–winners as Master Class and Love! Valour! Compassion! McNally left no formal autobiography, but these short pieces—by turns droll, incisive, and chatty—show McNally in an expansive and cautiously optimistic mood, commenting variously on the state of the American theater and some of its principal players, from the mid-1980s onward. Compelling are McNally’s gentle self-irony; his deep love for his collaborators, colleagues, and friends (there are moving encomia for Zoe Caldwell, Edward Albee, Kander and Ebb, and others); and his conviction that the American theater is “arguably [the US's] deepest expression of who [Americans] are." McNally’s theater is about characters and stories; he is not a theorist. “A lot of theater is just hanging out with people[,]" he opines. [T]here are also strong statements on censorship and succeeding as a gay playwright. Highly recommended.