Austin is set to host a three-day tribute to one of American theater's most prolific voices when the Terrence McNally Festival runs Jan. 29–31, 2027, bringing five new play readings, an academic symposium and a revival of McNally's own Corpus Christi to venues across the city. Admission to the symposium and all the readings is free and open to the public with reservations, while full festival passes run $135, or $180 with parking included.
The festival is presented by the Terrence McNally Foundation alongside Texas Performing Arts, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Rattlestick Theater, according to Playbill. The festival pairs a tribute to McNally with readings of five new plays. Single tickets for individual events are set to go on sale starting Jan. 4, per Texas Performing Arts.
Who Was Terrence McNally
McNally, a five-time Tony Award recipient, was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to American Theatre. He lived from 1938 to 2020 and spent six decades shaping American theater, per the same account. His plays include Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, and his archived papers are now housed at the Harry Ransom Center, which is co-presenting this festival.
Corpus Christi, the only play McNally set in his home state of Texas, was first staged in 1998 and reimagines the New Testament through Joshua, a Christ figure born and raised in Corpus Christi in the early 1950s, according to Texas Performing Arts. The Rude Mechs will present the production Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. at Crash Box Theatre. Those tracking Austin's theater calendar may recognize the fuller arc of McNally's catalog in that staging, even as the festival's newer works take center stage elsewhere.
Five New Plays, Five New Voices
The centerpiece of the festival is a slate of five new play readings featuring writers with ties to Austin, Houston and beyond. Girl Time, written by Eliza Frakes, an MFA candidate at UT Austin's Michener Center for Writers, explores class, femininity and privilege through shifts from comedy to horror to drama, and is scheduled for Jan. 29 at 3 p.m. The Seahorse, written by Kate Fodor and directed by Will Davis, Rattlestick Theater's artistic director, follows Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. and features a football team mascot, his wife, and a library bookworm mascot. Fodor was named one of the New York Times' eight to watch in theater and wrote for four seasons of Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which won Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Gulliver's Travels, a new stage adaptation of Jonathan Swift's satire freely adapted and directed by Zack Fine and Bradley Michalakis, is set for Jan. 30 at 3 p.m., per Playbill. Fine is a faculty member in UT's School of Theatre & Dance. You Can Tell a Tree by Its Fruit, written by comfort ifeoma katchy, a Houston native and recent Yale MFA graduate, is set in Reconstruction-era Texas and will be read Jan. 31 at 10:30 a.m.
The Daisies, written by Tony Meneses and directed by Danny Sharro, closes out the readings Jan. 31 at 2 p.m., per American Theatre. Meneses, a UT Austin alumnus, returns to campus to debut the play, which is set around 107.9 The Abyss, a local radio station going off the air at midnight in the late 1990s, as depicted in the work. All five readings will be directed and performed by leading talent from Austin and around the country.
A Symposium Digs Into McNally's Legacy
Beyond the readings, David Kornhaber will lead an academic symposium Jan. 30 from 9 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. examining McNally's contributions to American drama, according to American Theatre. The symposium takes place at the Harry Ransom Center and features individual presentations and a roundtable panel. Pairing that scholarly deep dive with live readings and a Corpus Christi revival brings performance, archival work and criticism together in a single weekend.
Readings are set to take place at the McCullough Theatre in Austin.
