TERRENCE McNALLY FESTIVAL to Take Place in Austin, Texas

The Terrence McNally Foundation, in partnership with Texas Performing Arts, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and Rattlestick Theater, will launch the Terrence McNally Festival, a pop-up festival taking place January 29–31, 2027 in Austin, Texas.

Celebrating the extraordinary life and legacy of one of America’s most influential playwrights, the three-day festival will bring together distinguished theater artists, emerging playwrights, and leading scholars for a weekend of performances, new play readings, and academic exploration. Rooted in McNally’s lifelong commitment to nurturing new voices in the American theater, the festival will honor his remarkable body of work while championing the next generation of theatrical storytellers.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Liz Frankel and Artistic Producer Kate Eminger, the festival will feature readings of five new plays by Eliza Frakes, Kate Fodor, Zack Fine & Bradley Michalakis, comfort ifeoma katchy, and Tony Meneses. Beyond the readings, David Kornhaber leads an academic symposium examining McNally’s contributions to American drama and Austin’s acclaimed theater collective The Rude Mechs are presenting a special production of McNally’s groundbreaking 1998 play Corpus Christi.

The festival marks a significant expansion of the Terrence McNally Foundation’s commitment to supporting playwrights and fostering meaningful artistic collaboration. Bringing together four presenting institutions with complementary missions, the festival celebrates both the enduring importance of McNally’s work and the vital role of new play development in the future of the American theater.

Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, McNally maintained a lifelong connection to Texas. His extensive archive is housed at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin, where his manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials provide an invaluable record of his creative life and the evolution of American theater.

FIVE NEW AMERICAN PLAYS

GIRL TIME

Written By Eliza Frakes

Directed by Sarah Hughes

Jocelyn has had a bad night. Like, a really bad night. She needs a little Girl Time. Luckily, she has a thousand dollars to burn and a babysitter with a drinking problem. Total win-win! This real-time play devolves from comedy to horror to drama, exploring the surreality of class, femininity, and privilege along the way.

Playwright Eliza Frakes is an MFA candidate in playwriting at UT Austin’s Michener Center for Writers. Her plays have been produced at the Edinburgh Fringe, The Echo Theater in Los Angeles, 21ten in Portland, and The Tank in New York City.

THE SEAHORSE

Written By Kate Fodor

Directed by Will Davis

Andrew is the new Seahorse mascot for the Tidal Wave football team and he loves his job. His wife Charlie is less excited to be married to a seahorse. Lila is iffy on her new role as the bookworm mascot for the library, but sometimes it’s nice to hide inside a costume. Mascotery gets messy as roles are played and truths are revealed in this new play from Kate Fodor, named one of “Eight to Watch” in the theater world by The New York Times and a writer on four seasons of Amazon’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Will Davis, Artistic Director of New York’s Rattlestick Theater, returns to his alma mater to direct.

Fodor is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in playwriting, a McKnight Fellowship, and the Kennedy Center’s Roger L. Stevens Award for New American Plays. Her plays have been produced Off-Broadway and at regional theaters across the country.

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

Freely adapted and directed by Zack Fine and Bradley Michalakis

Jonathan Swift’s beloved satire of human nature, politics, and society is long, old, possibly irrelevant, and has never been made into a successful theatrical adaptation…until NOW! Come see what all the fuss is about! Created in collaboration with Alley Theatre and developed in residence at Texas Performing Arts at UT Austin, with support from the College of Fine Arts O’Donnell Visiting Artist Endowment, Gulliver’s Travels brings together two accomplished theater artists with deep connections to new play development.

Zack Fine is an actor, director, playwright, and Assistant Professor of Acting at UT Austin whose work has been seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at regional theaters nationwide. Bradley Michalakis is Associate Artistic Director of Dramaturgy at Houston’s Alley Theatre, where he produces the annual Alley All New Festival.

YOU CAN TELL A TREE BY ITS FRUIT

Written By comfort ifeoma katchy

In Reconstruction-era Texas, Black shoemaker Louis Carter Sr. returns home to his family after an unfair imprisonment, determined to rebuild his business. He won’t be fooled again, and he knows how to beat a system designed to keep him out. He invites his Irish-immigrant cellmate and his family to move into his home and become the public face of Carter’s Shoe Emporium. You Can Tell a Tree by Its Fruit is a drama about who gets to rise and what is sacrificed in pursuit of the American Dream, written by Houston native comfort ifeoma katchy.

A playwright, producer, actor, dramaturg, and educator, katchy recently earned her MFA in Playwriting from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, where she received the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting. Her work has been presented through the Alley All New Festival and other new play development programs.

THE DAISIES

Written By Tony Meneses

Directed by Danny Sharron

Beloved local radio station 107.9 The Abyss is going out of business at the stroke of midnight. It’s the late 1990s and local stations are being bought left and right by corporate overlords. But DJ Santi is taking a stand. He plays the same song over and over as his colleagues rally ’round, callers keep calling in, and the clock ticks. The music is forever. That they can never touch. UT Austin alumnus Tony Meneses returns to campus to debut his new play about what lasts and what matters.

Meneses is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a two-time recipient of the Kennedy Center Latino Playwriting Award. His plays have premiered at Two River Theater, Denver Center Theatre Company, and The Old Globe, among others. He currently serves as Assistant Professor and Co-Head of the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2027 | 9:00 AM–2:00 PM

Prothro Theatre, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

The centerpiece of the weekend-long Terrence McNally Festival, the Terrence McNally Academic Symposium will bring together six distinguished theater scholars for an exploration of McNally’s extraordinary life, work, and enduring influence on the American theater.

The symposium will feature Brian Herrera (Princeton University), Charlotte Canning (University of Texas at Austin), Jordan Schildcrout (SUNY Purchase), Lawrence Switzky (University of Toronto), Bess Rowen (Villanova University), and Benjamin Gillespie (Santa Clara University), as well as an inside look at the Terrence McNally archives by Eric Colleary, Cline Curator of Theater and the Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center.

The symposium is organized by David Kornhaber, co-editor of Modern Drama and faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, who, alongside his UT colleague Nigel O’Hearn, will introduce the speakers and lead and moderate the Q&A sessions and concluding roundtable discussion.

Through scholarly presentations and critical discussion, the symposium will examine McNally’s remarkable theatrical legacy, situating his work within the broader history of American drama and illuminating its continued resonance for artists and audiences today.

The symposium will take place at the Harry Ransom Center, home to the Terrence McNally Papers, an extensive collection documenting the playwright’s life and career.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2027 | 8:00 PM

Crash Box, Austin, Texas

The festival will also feature a remounting of Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi by Austin’s acclaimed theater company Rude Mechs, bringing one of the playwright’s most daring works back to his home state for a limited run.