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[0:00] Rob Schneider: Tis May! Tis May! The lusty month of May!

[0:02] Kevin David Thomas: All right, calm down, Guinevere.

[0:04] Rob Schneider: Sorry, Kev, but what could be more exciting than spring showers, green trees, and new flowers?

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[0:31] Rob Schneider: I'm off to pick flowers now.

[0:33] Kevin David Thomas: Ooh, may I join?

[0:34] Rob Schneider: Yes, but dress light, because it's very warm for May.

[0:37] Kevin David Thomas: Uh...

[0:39] Rob Schneider: That's a Jerome card.

[0:41] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I got it.

[0:42] Rob Schneider: Hi, I'm Rob Schneider.

[0:43] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

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[1:00] Rob Schneider: You would be hard-pressed to find a playwright whose output in the past 50 years has been as prodigious as today's guest. His plays include...

[1:04] Kevin David Thomas: Ready for this?

[1:09] Rob Schneider: Bad Habits, The Ritz, the Tony Award-winning Love, Valor, Compassion, the Tony Award-winning Masterclass, Deuce, It's Only a Play, The Lisbon Traviata, and so many others. Not to mention the musicals he has written, like The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, The Full Monty, A Man of No Importance, Catch Me If You Can, The Visit, and Anastasia. And for the next hour, we will be discussing these shows and Frankie and Johnny and the Clair de Lune, which is being revived this summer with Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon.

[1:36] Kevin David Thomas: I didn't get a call for it, that's weird. We'll ask him why in a second. To tell us what it was like to work with such legends as James Coco, Nathan Lane, Geraldine Page, Zoe Caldwell, Audra McDonald, and so many others, here is the Tony Award-winning playwright and owner of one of the largest music collections of any of our guests, Mr. Terrence McNally.

[1:56] Rob Schneider: We are sitting here today on a very exciting day with the wonderful playwright, Terrence McNally. Tomorrow is the first preview of Frankie and Johnny and the Clair de Lune, the revival, which is very exciting. And then in a few weeks from now, you are receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tony Award Committee. Did this come as a total shock to you?

[2:17] Terrence McNally: Absolutely. Not Frankie and Johnny, but the Lifetime Achievement, yeah. The phone rang about, I knew a day or two before they announced the competitive competitions. So I'll be the only non-nervous person at Radio City come the 9th of June, because I already have mine. And my husband, Tom Curtie, is up for Best Musical.

[2:41] Rob Schneider: And he's going to be a nervous wreck.

[2:43] Terrence McNally: So he'll be the nervous one, you can calm him down.

[2:44] Rob Schneider: Yes, and I'll be the calm one, yeah. And what's his musical that he's up for?

[2:48] Terrence McNally: A Hadestown.

[2:48] Rob Schneider: Exactly.

[2:49] Terrence McNally: Yeah.

[2:49] Rob Schneider: Which is going to win.

[2:51] Terrence McNally: I think we're okay by it. I hope it does. I think it's magnificent.

[2:55] Rob Schneider: Isn't it fabulous?

[2:56] Terrence McNally: Absolutely fabulous. So let's talk a little bit about Frankie and Johnny, this revival. Which, you know, we're the first show of the new season.

[3:03] Kevin David Thomas: I know, this is very exciting.

[3:05] Terrence McNally: The 2019, 2020 season. So we'll maybe be totally forgotten by the time.

[3:10] Rob Schneider: We will make sure you are not forgotten.

[3:12] Terrence McNally: I think Audra and Michael's performances are so strong, they're going to be remembered. I'm not too worried.

[3:18] Kevin David Thomas: Yes. We did a run through Saturday at the rehearsal studio. And without lights and set and everything, it was total magic.

[3:29] Terrence McNally: So now we'll see if it's total magic with sets, lighting, props.

[3:33] Kevin David Thomas: Audience.

[3:33] Terrence McNally: And audience. Exactly. But I could not have been happier with the two actors.

[3:37] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, that's wonderful.

[3:38] Terrence McNally: We've waited a long time to get this cast together, because one would be available, then the other would get something they had to do. Our director, who's making her Broadway debut, does a lot in Brooklyn and theater for a new audience. So it's not that easy for a certain amount of time. You've got to run a minimum of 16 weeks to make any financial sense for an investor. You know, you can't do a play for a month.

[4:05] Rob Schneider: No.

[4:06] Terrence McNally: And more people would do plays.

[4:07] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[4:07] Terrence McNally: Oh, only a month, I'm in. Right, in a commercial sense. You can do it at one of the regional theaters on Broadway. I'm sure someone could talk Meryl Streep, and it's just a week.

[4:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[4:15] Terrence McNally: No, fine. But who's going to make any money? How do I pay back the $15 million to my investors?

[4:21] Rob Schneider: Yeah, that's all. Whose idea was to revive the play?

[4:25] Terrence McNally: One of Tom's co-producers. And she said, I love your play, Frankie and Johnny. And I said, yeah. And she said, I would like to revive it. Do you know an actor, Michael Shannon?

[4:40] Terrence McNally: I love Michael Shannon. I saw him first off-Broadway at a little theater, kind of a monologue play, called Fully Engaged or Otherwise Engaged.

[4:52] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes. I know what you're talking about.

[4:53] Terrence McNally: It was a tour de force. He was alone in his office. He shouted things through the door to his secretary.

[5:01] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, mistakes were made.

[5:02] Terrence McNally: Mistakes were made. That was a good play. Yeah, and I wrote his name down. And then I started seeing him in movies. And he's been nominated for two Oscars. And he's the guy, I think, when he enters, there'll be a murmur. Oh, that's who he is.

[5:14] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[5:14] Terrence McNally: We'll put it all together.

[5:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not a name you're used to seeing in theater. He's only done two other shows in New York, a play called Grace, I believe it was. And then he did A Long Day's Journey Into Night.

[5:27] Terrence McNally: Where Audra, of course, with her seven Tonys.

[5:30] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, exactly.

[5:31] Terrence McNally: She's a veteran, yes. But we go way back with Masterclass.

[5:35] Kevin David Thomas: Right, right, her first.

[5:37] Terrence McNally: No, Carousel was her first.

[5:38] Kevin David Thomas: Carousel, which I could take credit for discovering Audra McDonald. But anybody would have discovered her. Nick Heitner was the first to make the brilliant decision to hire this extraordinary woman who can do anything.

[5:51] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[5:52] Terrence McNally: And surprises me in every play. There's no such thing as a typical Audra performance. And this will be the first time she's starred in a leading dramatic role. She's not going to sing a note.

[6:07] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[6:07] Terrence McNally: And she's just amazing as I knew she would be.

[6:10] Kevin David Thomas: Amazing.

[6:10] Terrence McNally: And we got together here and read it and everyone said, oh, this is great. And then the complications, I'm doing this. If my series gets picked up, if this movie, so.

[6:22] Kevin David Thomas: So how many years would you say is it?

[6:24] Terrence McNally: Four or three.

[6:24] Kevin David Thomas: Oh my goodness.

[6:25] Terrence McNally: I think four years since we sat here.

[6:27] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[6:28] Terrence McNally: Maybe three, but several winners. Sometimes, yeah. In spring, yeah. It's not like, let's get Audra and Michael and we're in rehearsal a month later. Those days are sort of over.

[6:36] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[6:39] Terrence McNally: You miss those days?

[6:40] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[6:41] Terrence McNally: Just was easier to do theater.

[6:44] Kevin David Thomas: It was cheaper too.

[6:46] Terrence McNally: Everything costs so much money and getting cast and production values have just soared. I mean, when you hear that My Fair Lady cost well under a million dollars, but it was $600,000 and people were like, how can they spend that kind of money? Where does it go? That's in my lifetime. I've seen this happen. So I wish we could all come together and find a way to get the prices lower and get younger people.

[7:15] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[7:16] Terrence McNally: But every show has a Broadway student rush.

[7:20] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[7:21] Terrence McNally: And I must say, when I was a student at Columbia, there was the last row of the balcony. Every theater had a last row at $2.90. So if you really wanted to see it, everyone could afford $2.90.

[7:33] Kevin David Thomas: $2.90.

[7:34] Terrence McNally: Yeah.

[7:35] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[7:35] Terrence McNally: Okay, just clarifying for our younger listeners who really can't believe that you're going to say $2. You got an orchestra seat for $2.90.

[7:41] Kevin David Thomas: How did you look out if you were in the lottery?

[7:44] Terrence McNally: No, this was $2.90.

[7:47] Kevin David Thomas: So theater has just gotten harder. But thank God for these lotteries.

[7:51] Terrence McNally: Oh, absolutely. And if you're really committed to seeing something, half the things I got into in New York is because I wanted to see Maria Callas and Norma. And I knew if I went and stood around, eventually somebody would show up with a ticket.

[8:03] Kevin David Thomas: So you saw Maria Callas and Norma?

[8:05] Terrence McNally: Yeah.

[8:06] Kevin David Thomas: Side note, that's just amazing.

[8:08] Terrence McNally: I love Norma. It's one of my favorite operas. But I didn't just go to the box office and say, one, please, we're sold out. I made an effort. And the first Broadway show I wanted to see was My Fair Lady. And it just opened. And I went up and said, one for tonight. And the man looked at me like, today, if I'd gone up to Hamilton and said, one tonight, like, we're sold out for a year. I said, oh. And he said, if you really want to see the show, we form a standing room line at midnight. And you have to sit there all night. And it was September. I'd just come up here to go to Columbia. So it was a mild night. And the doors, the box office opens at 10. And the 32 places and standing room are gone usually in one minute because everyone has their $10 bill.

[8:50] Kevin David Thomas: Of course.

[8:52] Terrence McNally: You gave them the $1 bill.

[8:53] Kevin David Thomas: I'm sorry.

[8:54] Terrence McNally: It's $1.

[8:55] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[8:55] Terrence McNally: So it was, by 10:01, I had my ticket. But that first night, I started walking down Broadway and I saw Gwen Verdon and Dan Yankees and saw that from the last row and paid $2.90. My Fair Lady was cheaper than Dan Yankees.

[9:11] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, my God.

[9:12] Terrence McNally: But I had a seat. There was an onus then about standing room, I guess. Like, you really want to see the show.

[9:19] Kevin David Thomas: I was thinking that it's the same with Maria Callas waiting for like a day with Michael Kahn, the director of Washington Stage. We were like, we're going to get in it. This is why you come to New York.

[9:31] Terrence McNally: Of course. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So you've got to get back that passion to see things.

[9:37] Kevin David Thomas: So there's a well. If you really want to see a show, you're going to get in it. You'll find a way.

[9:43] Terrence McNally: In Frankie and Johnny, how involved are you in the rehearsal process as a playwright? Are you there every day, every week?

[9:46] Terrence McNally: I'm there when they show me something. This is a revival, not a revision. It's set in the period when I wrote it. They have a VCR. They talk about a New York at the height of the AIDS crisis when there was a squeegee man on every corner making your windshield dirty and the city finances were really bad. The trains were covered in graffiti. People were actually talking about leaving New York. Half the theaters on Broadway were for rent. That's when we lost three or four. More could have gone. Theaters like the Longacre, that was empty for like eight years.

[10:35] Kevin David Thomas: People on there were saying, we're paying these incredible taxes for this kind of real estate and it's not being used. Now you can't get a theater.

[10:43] Terrence McNally: Oh, they're all used, right?

[10:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[10:44] Terrence McNally: Oh, there's a good problem. I mean, the Hudson just reopened. That's the big trick now is to find a theater. Someone said there's about 30 shows circling for each theater. They only want to be at the booth. They only want to be at the Longacre. So that's changed completely, but thank God more didn't go down. It goes back to the numbers too. They know that they have to have that theater to make back their millions to pay their investors. It's all the numbers.

[11:12] Kevin David Thomas: And there's a beautiful empty lot now next to, on 44th, 45th Street. It's a big empty lot.

[11:21] Terrence McNally: 45th Street across from the Golden. It used to be a parking lot. They set up kind of a winter fair. And in Dallas, the new Dallas Theater Center, it's built like a little high rise. It's like four stories and there's three theaters in it. I don't mind the theaters go up.

[11:39] Kevin David Thomas: No, not at all.

[11:40] Terrence McNally: It's like going into an office building and you take an elevator. Yes, let's make it. But we need new theaters.

[11:47] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely.

[11:49] Terrence McNally: When you walk into a theater like the Broadhurst where Frankie and Johnny is playing, do you immediately get flooded with all the memories of the show?

[11:56] Terrence McNally: Yeah, absolutely. But I'm weird that way, I think, because I remember, I forget people's names, faces. I'll say to Tom, who is that person? He said, you had dinner at their house last night. But I'll say, I saw Raisin in the Sun here. I know the cast. I know this theater. And I'm almost never wrong. Things I saw when I was very, very young. And I remember when we did Catch Me If You Can at the Neil Simon, which had been called the Alvin.

[12:30] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, of course.

[12:31] Terrence McNally: I'm a big George Gershwin nut. And every time I went to the men's room, there's a wonderfully old worn brass push panel. And I said, George and Ira Gershwin, the DuBois, push this to go to that. It just thrilled me. And the urinals look that old. I'm taking a piss for George Gershwin. And that makes me... It's the magic of it. That thrills me.

[12:58] Terrence McNally: I told a white lie once and I forgave myself. Andrea Martin was doing Pippin. And I knew that Marlon Brando had made his Broadway debut. And I remember Mama there said, you know, you have Marlon Brando's old dressing room. Oh, and she freaked her out. And I said, oh, and I said, that's not going to send me to hell. A lie like that just made her so happy. I just made it up. I'm sure he was not on the second floor at that age. He was probably on the sixth floor. But now I really care who's used these dressing rooms. You know, when I go to the Broadhurst, I did Kiss of the Spider Woman there. So I always see Cheetah in that dressing room. And then Anastasia, our lead, that was her dressing room. And now it's Audra's. And I just love that feeling.

[13:51] Terrence McNally: And I like that the British are better at this happened here. Yeah, a celebration of their history. And I like they put plaques outside houses. I like that, too. I wish every Broadway theater had a plaque that listed all the seminal productions that had played there, so even tourists can walk by.

[14:11] Terrence McNally: I've seen is Barbra Streisand has a special plaque. She did Funny Girl at a theater. I forget which one. I think the Prince of Wales. I'm not sure, but there's a big plaque and Barbra Streisand made her. She was only in it for like three months. She impressed them or maybe she put it up herself. But there's a lot of other theaters. There's not one for me. I don't think it's sentimental. I think it's respect for the past. When are you going to grow up? Well, I'm 80, so I don't think I am grown up, I'm afraid. And Gwen Verdon. She did three shows in a row at the 46th Street Theater. Now the Richard Rodgers. There were so many stars in that era that were committed theater stars. You knew Gwen Verdon.

As soon as Damn Yankees closed, she was going to do another new musical or Merman or any of those. If they lived in the theater, Arthur Miller would write another play, Tennessee. Now it's more of an event, but we do lose people to the coast. I think a career in the theater is enough of a reward for my lifetime. I don't need TV and film exposure.

[15:30] Kevin David Thomas: Were you ever teased to the other coast?

[15:32] Terrence McNally: No. I know you've made films.

[15:34] Terrence McNally: The films I made were of my plays.

[15:37] Kevin David Thomas: Of course. So you never thought to go to be a screenwriter and movie writer?

[15:42] Terrence McNally: Frankly, I'm glad that was never really asked, because I think it's a very seductive lifestyle.

[15:43] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, sure.

[15:49] Terrence McNally: Whenever I go to LA, I feel very poor after 48 hours, that I should be driving a Bentley or a Ferrari at least, and eating at the right restaurants. It's just very seductive. In New York, I don't go around envying people. In LA, I go around envying people for material things, and I don't like what it brings out in me. Also, those people all work for a boss, and the only boss I really work for is myself, and the producer cannot make me change a line. He can say, I really don't like this scene, but I'm protected by the dramaturgy skills. And the film writer, TV writer, their work is owned by the person who's hired them.

[16:29] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely.

[16:30] Terrence McNally: So my writer friends on the West Coast, you wrote Frankie and Johnny and weren't paid a nickel to write it. I said, yep, you're crazy. But then they say, yeah, I just got replaced on my own movie, or the best scene in the movie they brought someone else in to rewrite it. So I think it's a fair trade. They envy me my freedom. My plays are written by Terrence McNally. I'll see movies of theirs, and they say, unfortunately, that scene you just raved about, I didn't write it. It's pretty good, too. But they have no rights. They sold it. I leased my script to the producers of Frankie and Johnny for the right to perform it for X number of rights, usually it's two or three years.

[17:13] Kevin David Thomas: Okay. And in your career, you've worked with some incredible artists. I want to ask you about a couple of them that are favorites of ours. How did you meet James Coco?

[17:20] Terrence McNally: Oh, he was amazing. Meeting him was so memorable. There's a little coffee shop we used to hang out in the village, which is gone. I mean, I've seen a lot of my old New York vanish. And I was with someone I was in a romantic relationship with at the time, the actor Robert Dreyfuss. And he said, this is my best friend, Jimmy Coco. And I looked up, and there's this heavy, Jimmy was never thin, heavy guy. And I said, hello, and went back to reading my paper. And about 30 seconds later, the paper was just snatched out of my hand. He said, how dare you? You know, not give me the courtesy of your attention. You know, you're introduced to me, and you go back to reading your newspaper. So I certainly remembered him right away.

Then I went to see him in a play, and I thought he was great. And I said, I'm going to write a play for you. He said, sure you will. I said, well, you can write a play for me, but no one's going to want to do it. I'm a fat character actor off-Broadway. So I wrote Next, which no one wanted to do with a fat character actor. And the theater in Stockbridge had a crisis. The fourth play of the season decided to go right to Broadway, and they canceled them like three weeks before they were supposed to open. It was Lovers and Other Strangers by Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor. So the theater came running in and said, we don't have a play for the fourth slot. And Elaine May had written the play they were doing, or directed it, that Jimmy was in.

And Jimmy said, I have a play, and it would be great for Elaine to direct. He gave it to Elaine to read. She liked it. And literally within 24 hours, I was on a bus going to Stockbridge. And that play enabled me to give up my day job. And I've never had a day job other than playwriting since.

[19:19] Kevin David Thomas: What was your day job before that?

[19:26] Terrence McNally: I was working at Columbia Alumni Magazine. It was a nice day job, but it had nothing to do with theater. So Elaine May and Jimmy Coco really played a big part in my life. And then Jimmy did several things of mine. But Jimmy was very smart. I wrote The Ritz for him. And he said, it's hilarious. It's going to make a lot of money, but I don't want to do it. I said, why? I wrote it for you. He said, it's all the heavy lifting. The other parts are great. They're all going to win Tony's. And I do all the hard work. So he was smart too. But we stayed very close and he was wonderful. Loved him as an actor. And he lived to act. I mean, he's very much like Nathan Lane in that way. Basically a vacation for them is maybe maximum a week off. Maximum. Three days is even better. That's all they need. Okay. I want to get back on stage. They like that audience out there.

[20:18] Kevin David Thomas: And then how did you and Nathan Lane come into each other's orbits?

[20:21] Terrence McNally: I go to the theater a lot. It's in your blood.

[20:24] Kevin David Thomas: Yes. I don't discover these people. They're good, but I go to tiny little theaters and see them. I saw Jimmy in this shoebox 99 seat theater that he was doing something. And I said to Papa, you're right. Your friend is a brilliant comic actor. I saw Nathan in a revival of Present Laughter with George Scott. And I went back and read the reviews and they said, some don't mention him. Some say other fine performers are. He was not singled out. I thought, this guy is amazing. And Frankie and Johnny was running on the main stage at Manhattan Theater, and he was in a play that had gotten very poor reviews in the press. And during one of the lulls, he was sitting in the lobby. I guess he wasn't on for a while.

And I said, I saw you in Present Laughter. I thought you were great, and I'd love for you to be in this play of mine I've written. It was Lisbon Traviata. But I went up and introduced myself. But I'd seen him first on stage as an actor, whereas Jimmy first ripped a newspaper out of my hand. But both were memorable meetings, because the minute I saw Nathan on stage, you go, this is the real thing.

[21:44] Terrence McNally: Jo Caldwell was like seared in my brain when I was an 18-year-old in London. Out in Stratford, I saw her in All's Well That Ends Well. And she had the big scene in the play was her and Edith Evans, Dame Edith Evans. And it's like I saw it yesterday, so vivid. So I have really wonderful theater memories. And I always try to work with people I perceive, and they usually are. It doesn't take much smarter than me. So I learn something. It's not fun being the smartest person in the room, or it's so obvious what we're doing wrong. Then you get more involved in a way with the production than I'd like to be. I like actors to do their interpretation of the role. But if it's dead wrong, or they're doing something that absolutely kills a laugh, that is needed. You have to speak up.

[22:30] Terrence McNally: Yeah, I don't whisper in actors' ears. Nathan and I have never discussed a play of mine, or Jimmy. No, like where do you want to eat? I don't know. They get it. If an actor doesn't get the play, there's nothing to talk about. If you don't know why Long Day's Journey Into Night is a sad play about four people who love each other, who are tearing each other apart, then you're not going to be good at it. You don't understand deeply dysfunctional families. So it's the right thing. When I was at Columbia, Gene O'Neill was a bad word. He did not have a play in print. His last play had closed out of town. He was like, oh, that old Irish drunk. And Jason Robart and Jose Quintero rediscovered him with Iceman.

And he found an actor who personified that dead at heart. O'Neill did. He was dead. He didn't get to enjoy it. But it was that combination. And that's the interpreter Eugene O'Neill needs. And whenever I see a play of his, I do miss Jason a lot. So it's all that. If you don't have the right people in the room for the first performance, it's not going to happen.

[24:03] Terrence McNally: When you revive a play like Tomorrow Night, I have a general idea of what should happen. And so do they. They've all seen the play, I'm sure, or have read about it. But when a play is absolutely the world premiere, you don't know what you have on your hands. That's why the right people have to be in the room. So I think Shakespeare had very good actors. And very good actors inspire you to write at your best. Especially if you use the same ones over and over again.

[24:28] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, I had a company, which of course is every playwright's real dream. But that just has never happened in America, really. A company that's stayed together.

[24:33] Terrence McNally: Would you like that to see like a national theater type?

[24:41] Terrence McNally: I had a little bit of experience with it at Yale. I was a playwright in residence. And we did two plays. What I didn't like is, oh, I know what's wrong with that scene. Go home and rewrite it. And they say, your play's not on for another 10 days, so we can't rehearse it. So I like this just focusing on one thing. And some nights there were actors literally like, are we doing the Chekhov tonight or the Tennessee Williams? So it sounds great, but you have to find people who all want the same thing. It exists pretty much in Washington State.

[25:16] Kevin David Thomas: What's that town that has theater?

[25:22] Terrence McNally: Oh, do you mean Ashland in Oregon? Everybody in that town is part of that theater. I'm happy to spend 12... I've had friends go through this. I want to work 12 months a year like any normal human. I don't want to sit around hoping I'm going to get a call they're going to cast you. And they've been very happy out there, but it's a certain temperament. And I think some actors would be miserable there. They want to be looked at and noticed in a big way.

[25:50] Terrence McNally: When you're writing something like Frankie and Johnny and the Clair de Lune, you're only responsible to your own artistic sensibilities. But when you're working on a musical, you're working in tandem with so many different collaborators. We talk a lot on this podcast about musical theater, but we've never had a book writer on before. You are our first and fabulous one at that. What is that process like? How do you find the balance in your collaborations?

[26:15] Terrence McNally: It's hard because ideally it should look like one person. The book and the lyrics and the music should all sound like the same character where one person wrote them. And that very often doesn't happen. I've just been lucky in finding collaborators in shows I wanted to do. I didn't start out as... I didn't get in the theater to be a book writer, but I've learned a lot about structure. It's all about building a really solid building for them to fill in and be the decorators. The music is sort of the decoration of it. But you've got to provide a strong building that will support the weight of the story. So structure is the main job. Dialogue is easy if you know what the scene is about.

[27:06] Kevin David Thomas: For something like, let's say, The Rink or A Man of No Importance, do you go and write an outline?

[27:11] Terrence McNally: I write a play. I would say a play for my collaborators to read. I wouldn't want you to read it. It's sort of overwritten, hoping if they read 20 pages, which is going to end up if they musicalize, find a song, five pages and say, we don't hear a song here, then either I failed them or I have to show them where I think it could be. That just hasn't happened. I've left pages with Kander and Ebb and Aarons and Flaherty and on the cab on the way home, the phone rings and they say, come back, we've written a song already. Or they grab the idea for it. Not finished, but inspired music right away. I think that's because I love musicals. My parents love musicals. I mainly got into theater more through listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts in Texas than anything else.

I appreciate music and I was very glad. I went to Columbia and they have a course called Contemporary Civilization. No matter what you want to be in life, everyone has to take this course. One semester-long course.

[28:23] Terrence McNally: Music makes you study the sonata form, which is so like playwriting, introducing a theme, developing it, ending back in the same key, resolving it. So I found that a very good teacher for all writing. I had a very classical education at Columbia, and I believe very firmly we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. I didn't invent the theater, and so I learned what I can from... Neil wrote all these experimental plays, which aren't done much anymore. Of course, they all have casts of 40. Towards the very end of his life, Arthur Miller wrote a play, I think it's called Resurrection Blues. I saw it in Key West where I have a place, at this little theater there, and I said, I can't believe an 80-year-old man wrote such a youthful play.

It's not a perfect play, but my respect for Arthur Miller just soared. He was not trying to write Death of a Salesman or Crucible. It was his, and I just love that. I just love theater, and when I see something good, I acknowledge it. I've met a lot of young playwrights, and I say, who's your favorite playwright? I name someone who's maybe 35 years old, and you say, well, you do know about people like Ibsen and Chekhov, don't you? Not really. What do you mean, not really? I get a little angry. I said, you want to be a playwright, and you don't know the difference between Anton Chekhov and Ibsen, or either of them, and Shakespeare. What Greek drama? I said, you're making it really hard for yourself.

You're not going to figure this out unless you're an amazing genius how to write a play. What's the word? I respect, and I love everything about it. I mean, the simplest word is I have remained stage struck, and there are days when it's a very hard business, and it's a very demanding profession, and the pressures are huge, and we all want to succeed, and it costs so much money, but I've never lost the excitement when I go to a play. Even if I've heard it's rotten, when the house goes to half and the lights come up, I've said, maybe it's going to be better than anybody said it was, and I give it a good 20 minutes. I try to see everything, and I think you learn from everything. I've walked out of two plays, I think, in my years of theater going.

One, I think it's very... I know people, and most of them know, so in a way I can't, but when I was in my 290 seat, and a student at Columbia, it never would occur to me to walk out. Maybe there'll be one great moment in Act II. I can afford three hours of my life, and you can look at the scenery, or look at the lighting, or notice something else about the production. People sort of say stage struck with a slight judgmental curl of the lip, and that annoys me, because I am stage struck, and I think you should be stage struck. You should be baseball struck if you want to be a Yankee. Otherwise, it's too hard to become a Yankee. Why bother? Why bother doing it?

[32:12] Terrence McNally: I don't believe in copycatting. I think I have my own voice. I don't think there's a typical Terrence McNally play, but I certainly could list works that have influenced me, and writers, and actors, and designers. I'm grateful to all of them. They're in my DNA. You're still soaking it up. You still go to see theater, and you're still constantly...

[32:36] Terrence McNally: Yeah, especially now, Tony season, I'm going almost every night to Broadway.

[32:42] Kevin David Thomas: You're a voter? Are you a voter?

[32:43] Terrence McNally: Yeah, I'm a voter, because I was for many years the vice president of the Dramatists Guild, and I'm on the council. I'm no longer the vice president, but I'm still a council member, and we're the voters. I think each craft in the theater, the board of governors has the voting rights.

[33:02] Kevin David Thomas: In terms of the Dramatists Guild, and you being so actively involved with it, what do you think still needs to change, or what do you think needs to be better for writers that are currently working today, specifically playwrights?

[33:13] Terrence McNally: I think the first thing is lower ticket prices. Make theater more accessible. I think the diversity battle has sort of been won this year, frankly. I think the levies have broken. I think women and minority groups really are feeling hopeful, and they can be heard. There's a real change there, and a healthy one. But I do think as an art form that is a business, you've got to find a way to lower ticket prices. I hate it when people say, I'd love to see your play, I can't afford it. A friend of mine runs a little theater in Brooklyn called Gallery Players, and they're just waiting for the rights, say for Doll's House Part Two to become available, because their audience cannot afford to see it on Broadway.

It's always packed, and they're passionate theatergoers, but not at the prices we're charging them. I don't know how to be a part of that. If you've got a big hit, you're not interested in lowering your ticket prices, unfortunately. But I would love to see more young people, and remind them of how relevant theater can be. There was one performance a week that was open to students, free, and they won by lottery, or you took a different school. Some way, because I'm always aware I see many more young people at the theater in London than you do in New York.

[34:52] Terrence McNally: Of course, they have more subsidized theater there, too, which is a crime that we don't have. We have not-for-profit theater, but it's not the same. Some of these theaters have done a great thing, like Signature, that no ticket for the first six weeks can be over a very affordable price, and another theater is doing that, too. And then, if it's Hamilton, you can charge $1,000. At least they can have a lottery here in New York.

[35:16] Kevin David Thomas: And public theater is packed, no matter what you want to see.

[35:19] Terrence McNally: Always.

[35:20] Kevin David Thomas: And young people there, too.

[35:21] Terrence McNally: Yeah, well, there's a great neighborhood for it, yeah, with NYU. But that's attractive to young people. Anything over $100 is not attractive to a young person, and it's very hard to do. So, that's something we should all work on.

[35:51] Terrence McNally: Shetler is centrally located on West 54th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, right in the heart of the theater district. Right in the heart, you'll find music, dance, and acting studios, complemented by two black box theaters and six presentation venues. The professional facilities, inspired environment, and expert industry staff combine to provide the New York artist with an unparalleled studio experience. Visit their website at ShetlerStudios.com. That's S-H-E-T-L-E-R-Studios.com. Shetler Studios and Theaters is our home for recording the legends of Broadway, and we hope that you make it your artistic home, too. That's Shetler, S-H-E-T-L-E-R-Studios.com. See you here!

[36:35] Kevin David Thomas: So, let's say a young playwright comes to you and says, I want to do what you did, but I know nothing really about the people that came before me. Which three plays or playwrights would you tell them, go look at this and then come back to me and we can talk?

[36:49] Terrence McNally: Mainly two, Shakespeare and Chekhov. Those are the two.

[36:55] Terrence McNally: Everything I love about playwriting that has influenced me, or I aspire to, Shakespeare because he writes so objectively about people. And young people, my early plays all seem to be my opinions of the world and my opinions of the characters. He's good, she's bad. And now I think my plays are more objective. And from Chekhov you learn the mystery, because I don't believe in plot. If I have a similarity in my plays, not much happens. Maria Callas gives a master class, but I think a lot happens during it. In Frankie and Johnny, not a lot happens, but at the end of the play they're brushing their teeth. To me that's a story. Other people would disagree. But plays that end Act One, what? I inherited, I won the lottery.

What they don't know is that the head of the dead body is in the, whatever that play is, the hat box. I just don't see life as melodramatic like that. So that's why I read them. Other people would read other playwrights. The Greeks, of course, everyone should read, because they're the best one-act form. It's a three-act form compressed into one. And the Greeks were probably the last theater that was performed for free when it was for the people, and just something you did. They didn't have any other entertainments. They didn't have movies and all the stuff we have, gadgets and our phones. So those would be my two. And I also say to them, find a playwright that you fall in love with and read everything about him or her you can.

Lillian Hellman, don't just read Little Foxes. Read the bad plays, the middling plays, her attempts at comedy, which weren't very good. Some think of her in comedy. She wrote one, I think it was her last play on Broadway. It was terrible. But she wrote some great plays, a lot of essays. But read about her and how that day, playwrights really negotiated a Hollywood situation. There were no real screenwriters in those days. So please get on the 20th Century. And they all would go out in the winter, go during the cold months and write a movie, bitch about it a lot, and then come back to Broadway. But read about her at the Algonquin, the Round Table. Just fall in love with her and want to know everything about her that you can.

And that's just my personal thing. The writers I love, I really read everything I can about them. If a new book comes out about Shakespeare, I read it. I always learn one little thing I didn't know. And I hope through that, that will lead them. Oh, this Strindberg sounds interesting too. Maybe I'll read him. Or another Russian, Turgenev. It sounds like I'm talking about the past. It's in those ashes of the past, I think we create a future. We're not creating out of thin air. Whether they think they're making up something that's never been done. They didn't invent theater. The Greeks figured it out, that people will sit in a concentrated space quietly if you tell them something interesting and hold their interest. That's the only real job I think a playwright has, is to interest the audience however long your play runs. Nothing distresses me more than a restless audience.

[41:02] Kevin David Thomas: Of course. And only a playwright at intermission can go in the men's room and the next guy at the urinal says, this play's awful, isn't it? Well, actually, I wrote it. How dare you? It's awful. A novelist does not have that experience. I just threw a book across the room. This is a crocker. The playwright, the novelist didn't see me do it. It was in the privacy of my bedroom.

[41:29] Terrence McNally: Right, exactly. But a playwright knows.

[41:31] Kevin David Thomas: Has that happened to you before? I heard bad comments about a work of mine at intermission.

[41:35] Terrence McNally: Oh, absolutely. Another bad side is seeing people at act one ends and you see them putting on their overcoat. You know they're leaving. No one puts on their overcoat. So that's a horrible sight to see. Yes, of course.

[41:51] Kevin David Thomas: I saw a play recently where people were leaving during it. I don't think I've had that experience.

[41:55] Terrence McNally: Oh, it is. It's very publicist and it's pretty hubristic, if that's a word. Yes, sure. Big ego to say, I'm going to tell you a story. So sit down in the dark in rather uncomfortable seats usually and shut up and listen to me go on for the next two to three hours. So we get punished.

[42:22] Kevin David Thomas: We would be remiss not to ask you about your music collection.

[42:26] Terrence McNally: Yeah. Tell us, when did you start amassing all of these albums?

[42:34] Terrence McNally: We all have our addictions, and mine became primarily opera. I have like one or maybe two recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos and the nine symphonies. I have every recording of La Boheme and Tristan and Sola, but I've started giving them away. They're here, they're in the country, they're in the attic, they're in the basement. There's no way I could listen to them in my lifetime. I have a friend who sings at the Met in the chorus, and I give him these shopping bags filled, and he said, they're gone in 30 seconds. Is that guy bringing them this season? Maybe they'll only be played once, but I don't throw them out on the street. It was something I probably should have dealt with with a therapist, but I didn't. I'm not hurting anyone.

I collect cast albums. I have a lot of them, and I said, do I really need the score of Flahouli? Or Seventeen? I like Seventeen. I enjoy Seventeen. I like Flahouli. Of course, you're in good company, though. I just talked about Wish You Were Here the other day. Someone who used to work at RCA said, when I write notes, they were going to reissue Happy Hunting. I said, only if you reissue Seventeen, and he did. He said, I kept my word. Did you see Happy Hunting? Yes. Did she sing with a horse? Was there a horse on stage for that? I don't remember a horse. She came in dressed as if she'd just dismounted or was about to mount one. She was sort of like Angela Lansbury at the end of Act One of Maine.

She'd been on a hunt. I don't see Merman on a horse. No, I don't think so. What she was on was a motorcycle in And He Gets Your Gun. Oh, yeah? Which you saw in the original when you were like five or something. Yeah. Her legs out on the handlebars. Her legs were out. She was such a good rider, and she was sharpshooting. I guess she was on a turntable, and as she went around, she was shooting out candles, and she didn't miss a shot. It was the finale of Act One. It's magical. I was so excited. A few years later, my second trip to New York, I saw Gertrude Lawrence in The King and I. I'd had the album in Texas. She doesn't have a great voice, but she's wonderful. Something is really wrong with her voice.

She really sounds much worse than she does on the album. It was the Wednesday matinee, and everyone said, you know, she's leaving Saturday night for a much-needed vacation, and she never came back, and she was dead like three weeks later. Oh, my God, yeah. I saw her fifth or fourth last performance. Her beauty, and she was a star. There's no way to describe it. I think the greatest moment, one thing I hate about getting older, you cry a lot. I don't know where it comes from. I think in gratitude that you've had so much joy in life. Theater has given me so much. When she and Yul Brynner danced, and it happened at Lincoln Center with Kelly, I think that's a perfect fusion of drama, music, and action.

Because the key to all theater is the action. I learned so much working with Elaine May on my first play. My first play, that was a success. My very first play was a big flop on Broadway. She said, all these words, you know, you brought in 20 new pages of words. I said, well, that's what I do. She said, no, what are they doing? And the wisdom of that really, and so much is happening when they dance together, and it's a glorious piece of music, and it's the greatest costume ever. It's the only costume, no one's ever dared change it. It's where you just will go right to Iron Sheriff and get that dress again, and to see that at eight years old. I didn't know she was dying, but when she died, I cried like my mother had died. I was so devastated. Of course, back in Corpus Christi, Texas, no one knew who Gertrude Lawrence was.

[47:19] Kevin David Thomas: You were all alone.

[47:21] Terrence McNally: Yeah. So, I've had moments like that, that just stay with you. When you can achieve those moments, there's a couple of moments in Masterclass, they're not filmed, they're not, but Zoe doing things that no other actress in the world could do. Nathan moments, he's given me, it's better than having a film of it, I think. I love remembering it and telling it. I love it when older people tell me about, there's not many left now, Lorette Taylor, say, or Tallulah Bankhead, who I always thought was this kind of a joke of a person, sort of pathetic, how great she was in Little Foxes. And they'd seen it, what, like 40 years earlier when Elizabeth Taylor did it. It brought it back, and I said, oh, Elizabeth Taylor, let's forget that.

But you didn't see the play unless you saw Tallulah Bankhead do it. And even Betty Davis doesn't come close in the movie, which is a pretty great film. And everybody has this show where it all, she wasn't a parody of herself, because what I saw of Tallulah Bankhead was a parody.

[48:34] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, sure. Yeah.

[48:35] Terrence McNally: Because it could have been a man in drag.

[48:37] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, she got older.

[48:38] Terrence McNally: Just silly.

[48:39] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[48:40] Terrence McNally: And the audience laughed inappropriately, anything she said.

[48:44] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, they were looking for it.

[48:45] Terrence McNally: As you're darling.

[48:46] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[48:47] Terrence McNally: So. But how cool to think that now you have given so many people those moments that you cherish, where people—

[48:54] Kevin David Thomas: I love it when people say that. I'm glad, because they should be cherished.

[48:58] Terrence McNally: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we will—

[49:01] Kevin David Thomas: And Jimmy Coco in Next was—

[49:02] Terrence McNally: Oh, yeah.

[49:03] Terrence McNally: That monologue at the end, where he has a complete breakdown. Virtuoso acting. And I was so excited, because Neil Simon saw it every night for a week. And I said, oh, wow. Oh, wow. And someone said, he's writing a play for me. He doesn't like your play that much. He's trying to capture Jimmy's voice. And of course, a month later, Jimmy said, guess what? Neil Simon is writing a play for me. It was a goodbye.

[49:31] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, Last of the Red Hot Lovers.

[49:32] Terrence McNally: Last of the Red Hot Lovers. Yeah. So, you know when an actor pops for an audience.

[49:38] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[49:39] Terrence McNally: It's exciting.

[49:40] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[49:41] Terrence McNally: I love the liveness of it. You know, it's live theater.

[49:44] Kevin David Thomas: What could be better?

[49:45] Terrence McNally: Yeah.

[49:46] Terrence McNally: And our time is up today with the wonderful Terrence McNally. Congratulations on the Tony Award.

[49:50] Terrence McNally: Thank you.

[49:51] Kevin David Thomas: We cannot wait to see Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. We are so excited for it. And we cannot wait to see what other wonderful plays come out of this.

[49:58] Terrence McNally: The day, a week tomorrow, I'm going to Austin to work on a play at the—

[50:03] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, amazing.

[50:04] Terrence McNally: Zach Theater.

[50:05] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, that's a good theater.

[50:06] Terrence McNally: I'm a new director. You know, it's not prime time to want to leave New York. And I'm working with actors I've never worked with. But I love this director who's come into my life, who I saw a production of his of Ragtime. And I thought, anyone who can make Ragtime works completely differently than Frank Galati did, with a fraction of the number of actors. My kind of director, a joy to work with. His name is Peter Rothstein, and he runs the La-Tee-Dah Theater in Milwaukee, which I've always, people say, I was in Milwaukee, I went to this theater there and saw the most extraordinary production. So I've always heard good things about this theater. And so I finally met him and saw one, and it was great.

[50:51] Kevin David Thomas: That's fantastic.

[50:52] Terrence McNally: That's how theater reinvents itself.

[50:54] Kevin David Thomas: And you're always collecting people still. I mean, I think that's fantastic.

[50:57] Terrence McNally: Oh, yeah. You write their names down. I saw the Oklahoma the other night, that cast. I hadn't heard of anybody in it, but, you know, Mary Testa. Yeah. And they're just extraordinary.

[51:09] Kevin David Thomas: Incredible, yeah.

[51:10] Terrence McNally: And you're extraordinary. And we hope you'll join us again sometime. We want to hear more about all the shows you got to see growing up.

[51:18] Terrence McNally: Father Time.

[51:19] Kevin David Thomas: No, please.

[51:20] Terrence McNally: No, no, no. No, I enjoy it. But sometimes I see people's eyes glass over younger people, because we honestly don't know who you're talking about. I said, what do you mean? Well, you keep mentioning Geraldine Page. Was she a playwright? I said, no, she was an actor. She won, too, an Oscar, at least one.

[51:39] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, she won an Oscar.

[51:40] Terrence McNally: She won an Emmy. The Traveling, what's that?

[51:45] Kevin David Thomas: Not Travels With My Aunt. Was that the term?

[51:47] Terrence McNally: She's on the bus going to Texas.

[51:51] Kevin David Thomas: Not Bus Stop.

[51:52] Terrence McNally: It's a, he's a Texas playwright.

[51:55] Kevin David Thomas: Our listeners are yelling at us, to us right now.

[51:59] Terrence McNally: But it takes place mainly on her bus ride back to the home.

[52:02] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[52:03] Terrence McNally: Yeah. At any rate, she won an Emmy, I think, for that.

[52:06] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yeah, she won.

[52:07] Terrence McNally: But I mean, not to know Geraldine, and you want to work in the theater? You know, you're wasting my time.

[52:11] Kevin David Thomas: Yep.

[52:12] Terrence McNally: Yeah. Be serious about it. It's a very serious profession.

[52:17] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[52:18] Terrence McNally: The really good actors, they work harder than anyone. Nathan is always at the theater a good hour before anybody else. We just script over. So-called was usually there 90 minutes before. So many actors today, the stage managers, I'm about to put you on, you know, and, oh no, 7.35, and the guy or girl shows up. Oh, I'm here. Now we all have that excuse, the trains.

[52:46] Kevin David Thomas: You have a train.

[52:48] Terrence McNally: But then the poor understudy, he's probably called his or her mother and friends.

[52:52] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[52:54] Terrence McNally: They may have to take off with a little bit of the costume. But really, the greats, I don't think ever showed up. I don't think Ethel Merman ever got to the theater at 7.40.

[53:04] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, no.

[53:05] Terrence McNally: No.

[53:06] Kevin David Thomas: No.

[53:07] Terrence McNally: No.

[53:08] Kevin David Thomas: No.

[53:09] Terrence McNally: No.

[53:10] Terrence McNally: Or Laurence Olivier wandered in.

[53:11] Kevin David Thomas: And they did every single performance.

[53:12] Terrence McNally: Yeah.

[53:13] Kevin David Thomas: You never missed, either.

[53:14] Terrence McNally: Didn't just come wandering in. I saw Olivier a lot, too, in London. So he's the one to talk about. The Othello, just amazing. And I would see shows a lot, too.

[53:26] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[53:27] Terrence McNally: I saw his Othello four times.

[53:28] Kevin David Thomas: Four times.

[53:30] Terrence McNally: I think if you're game for it, at some point when you get back from Texas, we'd love to have you back on again.

[53:34] Kevin David Thomas: Things calm down a little bit.

[53:37] Terrence McNally: And go through all of these great performances that you've seen. Part of the purview of this series we've had going for three years, interviewing legends such as yourself, is to remind younger listeners just the shoulders that they're standing on, and to remind them of the Geraldine Pages and stuff.

[53:50] Kevin David Thomas: But more than that, you want to make them curious enough to get a film.

[53:54] Terrence McNally: But your stories do that.

[53:57] Terrence McNally: Olivier's best work was in the stage. The movie of Othello, I watched about 15 minutes of it. And it looks like he's shouting and ranting, because he didn't scale it. It's a document of the performance he was giving at the Old Vic. He didn't scale it down. But to inspire them to go up to Lincoln Center, to the library.

[54:17] Kevin David Thomas: That's what this conversation does, I think.

[54:20] Terrence McNally: I hope so.

[54:21] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, I think so.

[54:22] Terrence McNally: Or go out and see new plays, too.

[54:24] Kevin David Thomas: Absolutely.

[54:25] Terrence McNally: I'm not just saying, let's discourage all new plays.

[54:29] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no.

[54:30] Terrence McNally: But you've got to know the shoulders you're standing on.

[54:31] Kevin David Thomas: I think quite the opposite, I hope.

[54:32] Terrence McNally: Yes.

[54:33] Kevin David Thomas: Indeed.

[54:34] Terrence McNally: Great.

[54:35] Kevin David Thomas: All right.

[54:36] Terrence McNally: This was so much fun.

[54:37] Kevin David Thomas: Thank you so much.

[54:38] Terrence McNally: My pleasure.

[54:39] Kevin David Thomas: And I can't wait to see the show. And congratulations on the well-deserved Tony Award.

[54:41] Terrence McNally: I hope you enjoy it.

[54:42] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes.

[54:43] Terrence McNally: Oh, we cannot wait.

[54:44] Terrence McNally: I'm very excited about the Tony, deeply honored. I hope it sort of represents my generation of playwrights. I don't feel it's just me. Me and John Guare are about the only two still standing of our group.

[54:58] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[54:59] Terrence McNally: Yeah. Well, it's good you're recognized.

[55:01] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[55:02] Terrence McNally: I don't know how I got 80. Just one day I was 80 and I went, what? How'd that happen? What? Yeah. How'd that happen? But I love when you hear people say, oh, she's so old. She must be close to 40. I used to say the same thing. At least don't tell us that. It's all part of the cycle. 80 is not the new anything.

[55:21] Kevin David Thomas: No.

[55:22] Terrence McNally: 80 is 80.

[55:23] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[55:24] Terrence McNally: All right.

[55:25] Kevin David Thomas: Till next time.

[55:26] Terrence McNally: Today's episode was recorded at Shetler Studios on 244 West 54th Street. Visit Shetler Studios to book your room today and you could be as cool as us.

[55:38] Kevin David Thomas: That's S-H-E-T-L-E-R studios.com. And a big thanks to our sound editor, Daniel Schwartzberg, and social media manager, Bethany Ann Sulecki. And friends, don't forget, we want more folks to hear these incredible stories. And that's where you guys can come in and help us out.

[55:54] Terrence McNally: Yes.

[55:55] Kevin David Thomas: In order for people to find out about us, we need lots of ratings on iTunes. The more ratings, the more they'll come up in searches. So head on over to iTunes. Search for Behind the Curtain Broadway's Living Legends. Click on our logo. Click on ratings and reviews. Then write a review and leave us five stars and make us feel as special as Eliza Doolittle on Eliza Doolittle Day. Or you can leave us one star and make us feel as bad as Annie did in that weird production in Boston where Annie dreamed about being adopted and then ended the show back in the orphanage. True story. Rob was there.

[56:30] Terrence McNally: I saw it.

[56:31] Kevin David Thomas: So head on over to iTunes and make us feel even more special than we already do.