{"id":471763,"date":"2026-10-20T16:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471763\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T16:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:58:23","slug":"terrence-mcnally-festival-will-feature-5-new-american-plays-symposium-and-corpus-christi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/471763\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrence McNally Festival Will Feature 5 New American Plays, Symposium, and Corpus Christi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Terrence McNally<\/a> Festival, a three-day celebration of the life, work, and legacy of the late Tony-winning\u00a0playwright, will be held January 29\u201331, 2027, in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

Presented by\u00a0The Terrence McNally Foundation, in partnership with Texas Performing Arts, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Rattlestick Theater, the upcoming festival will feature readings of five new American plays, an academic symposium, and a revival of McNally’s landmark play\u00a0Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Liz Frankel and Artistic Producer Kate Eminger, the festival will feature readings of the following new plays: Girl Time, written by Eliza Frakes and directed by Sarah Hughes<\/a>; The Seahorse, written by Kate Fodor and directed by Will Davis<\/a>; Gulliver’s Travels, freely adapted and directed by Zack Fine and Bradley Michalakis; You Can Tell a Tree by Its Fruit, written by comfort ifeoma katchy; and The Daisies, written by Tony Meneses and directed by Danny Sharron<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Kornhaber\u00a0will lead the 9 AM-2 PM\u00a0January 30\u00a0academic symposium, examining McNally’s contributions to American drama, in the\u00a0Prothro Theatre of the\u00a0Harry Ransom Center at the\u00a0University of Texas at Austin.\u00a0The Rude Mechs production of McNally’s\u00a0Corpus Christi\u00a0is scheduled for January 30 at 8 PM at Austin’s Crash Box.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when so many of our beloved theatre\u00a0festivals have ceased to be, we could not be more proud to partner with Texas Performing Arts, the Harry Ransom Center, and our forever collaborators at Rattlestick Theater to present a festival that celebrates Terrence McNally’s profound impact on the American theatre while championing the new voices shaping its future,\u201d says Terrence McNally Foundation Executive Director Santino DeAngelo in a statement. \u201cIt feels especially meaningful to host this festival in Texas, where Terrence grew up and first discovered his love of theatre. We look forward to an extraordinary weekend of bold new plays, lively conversations, and unforgettable performances that celebrate Terrence\u2019s remarkable legacy and the artists who continue to carry it forward.”<\/p>\n

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, McNally maintained a lifelong connection to Texas. His archive is housed at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin, where his manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials provide a record of his creative life and the evolution of American theatre.<\/p>\n

“The Terrence McNally Foundation has been a recent energizing force in new play development, and I am honored to help them expand south. The five scripts we have selected are smart, brave, original, and theatrical, and I can’t wait to share them with an audience. And the Rude Mechs doing McNally’s Corpus Christi is a pairing not to be missed!” adds\u00a0Terrence McNally Festival Artistic Director Frankel.<\/p>\n

\u201cRattlestick is thrilled to deepen its partnership with the Terrence McNally Foundation and champion new play development across the country. Austin holds a special place in this work, with its strong ties to UT Austin and St. Edward\u2019s University reflected in Rattlestick\u2019s artistic leadership. The city\u2019s rich and expansive theatre landscape serves as a source of inspiration as Rattlestick prepares to reopen its newly renovated, flexible theatre space, reaffirming its identity as a bespoke development theatre dedicated to well resourced productions with long process-driven timelines,\u201d\u00a0states\u00a0Eminger, associate artistic director at Rattlestick Theater.<\/p>\n

In addition to his Tonys for Love! Valour! Compassion!<\/a> and Master Class<\/a>, McNally also won two Tony Awards for penning books for musicals: Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1993 and Ragtime<\/a> in 1998. He also received the Tony Awards’ Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre honor. Read the complete obituary for Mr.\u00a0McNally by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Schedule and festival passes are available\u00a0at\u00a0TerrenceMcNallyFestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Terrence McNally Festival, a three-day celebration of the life, work, and legacy of the late Tony-winning\u00a0playwright, will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-471763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}