American playwright Terrence McNally was BOTD in 1938. Born in Florida to a working-class Irish-American family, he was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1956, he moved to New York City to study at Columbia University, where he was commissioned by John Steinbeck to help write a musical of his novel East of Eden. His 1964 play And Things That Go Bump in the Night was one of the first Broadway dramas to deal openly with homosexuality, infuriating conservative critics. After a prolific early career, he left New York after the failure of his 1978 play Broadway, Broadway. The devastation of the HIV/AIDS crisis reignited his writing, producing the plays Andre’s Mother and Lips Together, Teeth Apart. He rose to wider commercial attention with the 1987 romantic drama Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. His career went into overdrive in the 1990s, with his libretto for Manuel Puig‘s queer-themed novel Kiss of the Spiderwoman, with music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb; the 1995 play Love! Valour! Compassion!, a dramedy about eight gay men holidaying together, later filmed in 1997; Master Class, a portrait of an embittered, late-career opera singer Maria Callas; and Ragtime, a musical adaptation of E. L. Doctorow’s Jazz Age novel. All four works were critical and commercial hits, winning him Tony Awards. He ignited controversy with his 1997 play Corpus Christi, a re-imagining of Jesus of Nazareth as a gay man who has sex with his disciples, prompting widespread protests from conservative Christian groups. His last works included musical adaptations of the male stripper film The Full Monty and Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir Dead Man Walking, and a return to gay-themed work with the family dramas Some Men and Mothers and Sons. His 2018 play Fire and Air portrayed the turbulent relationship of Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev and ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky. McNally had a discreet four-year relationship with playwright Edward Albee in the 1950s. He in a long-term relationship with actor-director Robert Drivas until Drivas’ death from an AIDS-related illness in 1996, and married his long term partner Tom Kirhady in 2010. He died in 2021 of a COVID-related illness, aged 81.