SECOND FLOOR OF SARDI'S: A Drink With Terrence McNally

By Robert Simonson
19 Jul 2011

Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Photo by Peter James Zielinski

Sharing a drink with Tony-winning Master Class playwright Terrence McNally at the upstairs bar of Manhattan's famed theatre-district restaurant.

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As a young man, struggling to become a successful playwright, Terrence McNally set up Sardi's as a reward.

"I told myself I couldn't go there until I had a play on Broadway," he said. He didn't have to wait long. Things That Go Bump in the Night opened at the Royale Theatre on April 26, 1965. The opening night party was, yes, at Sardi's. The Theatre District eatery was still the center of theatrical dining culture back then, and the first choice for premiere soirees. McNally walked in to an ovation. He thought it was for his 26-year-old self. Then he noticed Eileen Heckart, the star of his play, standing right behind him. "The applause was for her," he recalled, smiling at the memory.

Though it has been nearly a half-century since that party, Sardi's still holds a special place in McNally's heart. He rented out the entire restaurant for his 70th birthday celebration in 2009. He was trying to think of a setting that would top other landmark birthday parties he'd been to. "I thought, nobody's done that," he said. He and 200 of his closest friends had a swell night. "I remember Barbara Cook, Zoe Caldwell and Doris Roberts and me closing the place," he said. "I've know Doris probably longer than anyone else in New York. She was in Bad Habits." That play, one of McNally's early critical successes, opened Off-Broadway in 1974.

Tyne Daly in Master Class.
photo by Joan Marcus

Caldwell, of course, was the original star of Master Class. The 1995 play, which just opened in revival at the Friedman Theatre, marks the playwright's 20th Broadway opening, if you count the adaptations and uncredited contributions. The 19th, the musical Catch Me If You Can, opened earlier this spring. And yet the occasions have not become old hat for him. "How could they?" he asked. "It's tremendously exciting. Broadway is the best real estate in the theatre. There's something about seeing a play under a proscenium. Plays look better on a Broadway stage. When an actor makes a gesture, the gesture seem larger. Everything seems bigger. When an actor makes a gesture Off-Broadway, there's a danger he's going to hit one of the lights."

Even in his 70s, McNally's quiet, childlike enthusiasm for the stage has not diminished. Still, he's accustomed enough to the routine to feel comfortable scheduling our interview in the second floor bar of Sardi's during the hour before Master Class's opening-night performance. I said I supposed the theatre would be full of people who wanted to say hello to him, meaning to express sympathy for that coming social trial. "I hope so," he answered.

The new Master Class stars Tyne Daly as opera diva Maria Callas. The production previously ran at the Kennedy Center in spring 2010 as part of a festival celebrating McNally's work. Casting her was the playwright's idea. "I thought, Who's a stage actress from the boards up? And that's Tyne. She didn't want to do it. She thought she was too down to Earth, but I convinced her." He contacted the actress himself. "I like to do that," he said. "It doesn't make my agent happy. They want things to go through them. And certainly Hollywood agents don't want their clients to take stage work, because there's not enough money for them in the deal."

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