Before the Lights Fade

Honoring Terrence McNally, Theatrical Pioneer and LGBTQ Legend

Jul 01, 2025

"The world needs artists more than ever to remind us of our humanity."
—Terrence McNally

Welcome, dear reader—old friend, new rebel, or curious heart just now stepping into the wings.

This space you’ve entered is held for you. Whether you have followed each step of this Pride on the Page journey or find yourself joining us at the tea table for the first time for this tea-time showing, your voice matters here. Your presence is not an accident, but a deliberate act of witness. We are made, reshaped, and remembered in the stories we tell—and in the stories we dare to hear.

So sit down, settle in, and let me tell you one more story of a Pride icon. Not a fable, though it contains hidden truths. Not a tragedy, though grief runs through it. Not a comedy, though laughter rings throughout. No—this, like all the best tales, is the story of a life. A grand, messy, beautiful life in all its wonder and contradiction.

Today for tea time I invite you to enjoy a show with your tea. Let the lights dim and the curtain rise.

The spotlight shimmers to life and in its bright light: Terrence McNally.

🧳 From Corpus Christi to Curtain Call

Before he became the toast of Broadway, Terrence was a boy from the rural Southwest. Born in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1938, he was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas—sensitive, brilliant, queer, and unsure where he belonged. He sought solace in books and stories, in piano keys and whispered stage directions. His hometown did not yet have the language to hold him, but the theater did.

Terrence’s parents, both Broadway enthusiasts, took him to see Annie Get Your Gun and The King and I, but it was On the Town that lit the fuse. The Staten Island Ferry, the Empire State Building—the dreamscape of New York cast a spell over him. It was a place where stories danced into being and strange kids could become stars. In 1956, he left the South with a suitcase full of questions and a fire in his chest, bound for Columbia University. He graduated in 1960 with a degree in English—and an unshakable belief that stories could save lives.

He launched his career in the shadow of giants, working briefly as a tutor for John Steinbeck’s children, but McNally was never meant to ride coattails. His early plays explored the absurdities and anxieties of a generation, like And Things That Go Bump in the Night (1965), which tackled paranoia, repression, and social breakdown in the tense hush of the Cold War. It was queer, unapologetic, and ahead of its time—earning both largely negative reviews and a cult theater status.

His 1971 play Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone? tackled America’s post-’60s spiritual and political disarray, laced with anti-war anguish and the disillusionment of youth. Even in these early works, McNally danced between satire and sincerity, exposing hypocrisies while laughing in their face.

🍸 The Demons in the Wings

Terrence’s journey wasn’t all spotlight and roses. Like so many who feel too much, he numbed what he couldn’t express. By the 1970s, alcoholism had taken hold—quietly at first, then with more obvious tolls on his work, his reputation, his well-being.

It was the legendary Angela Lansbury, after working with him on The Ritz, who pulled him aside and gently but firmly said what no one else had dared: “You’re too good to waste.” Her words landed like gospel. He entered recovery soon after. It was one of the turning points in his life—not just artistically, but spiritually.

Sobriety didn’t solve everything, but it sharpened his vision. He began to write with greater clarity, emotional range, and daring—digging deeper into what made people ache, laugh, and survive.

🎭 Comedy, Chaos, and the First Glimpses of Truth

He pivoted effortlessly to comedy in the 1970s with crowd-pleasers like Bad Habits—a double-bill satire of institutional dysfunction in both a sanatorium and a spa—and The Ritz, a farce set in a gay bathhouse that brought camp, chaos, and unapologetic sexuality to Broadway in a time when such a thing was scandalous. He made people laugh, yes—but always while sneaking in a deeper truth.

Terrence’s work in this period also grew more collaborative. He formed an important creative and romantic relationship with producer Gary Bonasorte, a partnership that ultimately did not survive but matured into a deep friendship. Gary would later die of AIDS—a loss McNally bore with quiet reverence, weaving his grief into the stage like a red thread in tapestry.

🕯 Writing Through the Plague

The AIDS crisis devastated the artistic community McNally loved. Friends died. Lovers died. Theaters became memorials. But McNally never turned away. Instead, he wrote through the grief. He sharpened his voice, writing with even greater compassion, rage, and clarity.

His 1987 play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune—his first major commercial success—told the tender story of two wounded, working-class souls trying to find connection in the dark. It wasn’t explicitly about AIDS, but it was haunted by loss and yearning. Audiences listened.

Then came Lips Together, Teeth Apart (1991), set in a Fire Island beach house on the Fourth of July. With only straight characters onstage, McNally painted a devastating portrait of straight America's quiet discomfort with the queer community and the epidemic that was ravaging it. It was a ghost story where the ghosts were still living—just barely.

He adapted Andre’s Mother into a televised miniseries, earning an Emmy for its heart-rending depiction of a grieving mother and the man her son loved. Through silence, he made us hear what society still refused to say aloud.

💓 Love, Valour, Resurrection

From the ash and silence, he wrote resurrection.

Love! Valour! Compassion! (1994) captured a group of gay men retreating to a country house over three summer weekends. It was theatrical communion—filled with sex, betrayal, aging, dance, and devastating joy. The characters laughed, fought, lived, and died onstage, not as symbols, but as people. It won the Tony for Best Play.

Then came Corpus Christi (1998), a play that reimagined Jesus and the apostles as gay men in Texas. It was met with bomb threats and condemnation. But McNally never blinked. If theater is church, then this was his gospel.

He also collaborated on musicals, including the Tony Award-winning Kiss of the Spider Woman, which explored politics, sexuality, and imagination in a prison cell; Ragtime, an epic story of race, immigration, and revolution; and Master Class, a play about opera, artistry, and failure, which won him another Tony. The range of his work was staggering—but always, the throughline remained: dignity, courage, and love.

Through all this, McNally found not just acclaim—but partnership.

In 2003, he met Thomas Kirdahy, a theater producer and LGBTQ+ activist. The two fell in love and eventually married—in 2010 in Washington, D.C., before nationwide marriage equality, and again in New York in 2015. Their marriage was not only a love story, but an act of political visibility. McNally knew the power of writing one's own ending.

🏆 A Life Applauded, A Legacy Unfolding

In his lifetime, McNally won four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Drama Desk Award, and the first Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. His words were spoken by actors from Nathan Lane to Audra McDonald, from Broadway stages to living rooms across the country.

Terrence McNally died on March 24, 2020, of complications from COVID-19. He was 81 years old. One of the first prominent American artists to be claimed by the virus, his death felt like a stage light suddenly going dark.

But it was not the end.
His final bow was not quiet.
It was the passing of a torch.

🎭 The Curtain Falls

As the torch passes, dear friends, so too does the curtain fall on this tea-time showing.
Terrence McNally’s life was not merely a collection of plays—it became his greatest play. And in it, he was both writer and star, director and devoted witness. He did not just script other people’s stories; he lived his own like a work of art.

And from that story, we gather today’s lesson:
We need more stories.

McNally’s characters—and McNally himself—reflected the full breadth and depth of queer existence. Sexuality was central, yes, but never singular. These were people with contradictions, longings, sharp humor, private griefs, and fragile courage. Their queerness was not a punchline or a wound—it was one piece of a shimmering, kaleidoscopic identity.

Terrence carved a place for these people not just onstage, but in the hearts of audiences who had never before seen queerness rendered with such humanity. He wrote allies and adversaries, doubters and dreamers. He gave straight America a mirror and a door. He gave queer America a seat at the table—and sometimes the table itself.

These are the kinds of stories that change the world.
Stories with texture.
With contradiction.
With life.

Because storytelling is not just about being seen.
It’s about seeing ourselves survive.
It’s about showing the next generation—those just finding their way—that they are not alone. That they are not wrong. That they are not broken.

We are social creatures. We learn through mimicry, witness, and rhythm.
When LGBTQ+ people are rendered invisible—or worse, reviled—we know what blooms in that darkness: homelessness, addiction, depression, suicide, and violence.
We have the data. We also have the memories. And the names. And the scars.

That is why this work continues.

While this may be our final long form tribute to a Pride icon in this series, the series itself is not yet over. There are still spotlights to shine, teacups to fill, and stages to step onto.

🕊 This Wednesday, we lift up the allies—the accomplices, advocates, risk-takers, and quiet rescuers who stood beside the LGBTQ+ community when it counted most. From Robin Williams and Dolly Parton, to Eleanor Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter, we will gather the stories of those who used their privilege as platform—and offer a proper, overdue thank-you.

🔥 And on Friday, we bring it all home.
For 30 days we have summoned legends, channeled rebels, and steeped ourselves in legacy. Now it’s time to cast our gaze forward. Friday’s piece will be Lady LiberTea’s final op-ed in the Pride on the Page series—a declaration, a reckoning, a roadmap.

How do we carry this rebellion of Pride into every month?
Into every street, every school, every vote, every breath?
Whether you are an ally or a member of this radiant community, Friday’s missive will be for you—a compass for what comes next.

Because this show is not over.
It’s only intermission.

"I’m not interested in characters who don’t change. I want a revelation, not a rehearsal."
—Terrence McNally

Until our next bold move,
~ Lady LiberTea ✨🫖

Terrence McNally in his first apartment, used in the American Master PBS series.

☕ Your Cue, Dear Reader

Terrence McNally taught us that stories are not a luxury—they are a lifeline. They name the unnamed. They rescue the invisible. They shape who we dare to become. So if this piece moved you, let that movement ripple outward.

Here are three bold steps you can take right now:

1. 📚 Subscribe & Stay in the Story

Our rebellion is only just beginning.
If you believe in the power of queer storytelling to light the way—subscribe and stay close. There are more legends to lift, more tea to steep, and more futures to imagine together. Subscribe using the button below and stay tuned for how we will be continuing to weave these stories bridging the divides and lighting up those too long in the wings.

2. 🎭 Explore LGBTQ+ Theater and Playwrights

Want to read, watch, or support more queer theatrical voices? Organizations like the National Queer Theater and New Conservatory Theatre Center spotlight plays and playwrights pushing boundaries and changing lives.

3. 📖 Add a Queer Play to Your Bookshelf or Classroom

Representation begins at home—and in the syllabus. Whether you’re a reader, educator, or curious heart, consider adding a queer play to your next reading list. Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, The Inheritance by Matthew López, or Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney are beautiful places to start.
👉 Visit Fabulosa Books or your local queer-owned bookstore to find the script that speaks to your soul.

Until Wednesday dear defenders,

~Lady LiberTea✨🫖