Author’s note

Plays are meant to be seen, not read, and yet we playwrights are always moaning how difficult it is to get our plays published. In fact, we moan about that almost as much as we moan how difficult it is to get our plays produced. Of course, the thing we moan about most is how difficult it is to write them.

That’s a lot of moaning.

The truth is probably that none of it has ever been easy—writing, production or publication—but in these last fleeting moments of the twentieth century the voices of those who claim that the theater is not only dying but actually dead and just doesn’t know it yet are particularly strident and, to some ears, persuasive, so that a single playwright’s moans may seem just that more poignant and urgent than in Shakespeare’s day or in Ibsen’s.

Significantly, none of those voices belongs to a working playwright. Our moans are pretty small potatoes by comparison. They’re saying the party’s over; we’re saying give us the opportunity and we’ll show you it’s just begun. A lot of very good plays are being written right now. They’re being produced; they’re even being published. The only thing they’re not is easier to write.

Very few of them are being produced on Broadway, however, which has led to the false conclusion that they aren’t being written at all. Not true. The American theater has never been healthier. It’s Broadway that’s sick. The American theater is no longer Broadway. It is Los Angeles, it is Seattle, it is Louisville, it is everywhere but the west side of midtown Manhattan.

Just look around. For the first time in our history, we have a national theater—regional theaters are in the vanguard of producing the world premieres of our best playwrights. Twenty-five years ago regional theaters produced New York’s hits, period. Now New York is host to the best work of the not-for-profit regional theater.

I was recently asked to appear on a panel saluting “The Golden Age of Gay Theatre.” Nonsense. This is a golden age for the American theater, gay and straight. The good new plays are being written and produced as I write this introduction. Take it from someone who toils in the trenches: The energy being generated by American playwrights, directors, actors and designers is seismic. With a little luck you’ll be reading about them and seeing them and reading them by this time next year. With no luck at all you’ll be aware of them in two or three or maybe five years, but I promise you, they’re coming soon to a theater near you. The American theater is on a roll, and there is no stopping us.

I wouldn’t be a playwright today if it weren’t for the regional theater. My regional theater is the Manhattan Theatre Club. I’m a regional theater playwright who just happens to live in New York.

Without the unconditional love of MTC (support seems too meager a word), this play would never have been written. Knowing that they are committed to me as a writer and not as a playwright who is expected to provide them with “hits” has given me the confidence to write each play as I wanted, not what I think they wanted based on expectations from the last play. Thanks to MTC I don’t have to compete with myself. There was never any danger that I would be tempted to write Lips Together, Teeth Apart 2 or Frankie and Johnny Go to Paris or Revenge of the Lisbon Traviata.

And while I write and dream my next play, I know that I will have a production of it at MTC regardless of its likelihood to succeed with audiences and critics. I may be the only playwright in America who has such an arrangement with a producing theater. Because of it, I know I am the luckiest. I owe Lynne Meadow, Barry Grove and Michael Bush my artistic life. In a profession strewn with too many orphans, they have given me a home that in truth feels more like a fairy tale palace. I have a theater!

Good fortune has allowed me to work with the best actors, directors and designers of these times. The play in hand is no exception. Love! Valour! Compassion! had no specific moment of inspiration. The title comes from an entry in John Cheever’s journals. I think I wanted to write about what it’s like to be a gay man at this particular moment in our history. I think I wanted to tell my friends how much they’ve meant to me. I think I wanted to tell everyone else who we are when they aren’t around. I think I wanted to reach out and let more people into those places in my heart where I don’t ordinarily welcome strangers. I think a lot of things about this play, but mainly I think it’s much too soon to know what they are. These things take time.

I know for certain, however, that the play was given a definitive production by Joe Mantello and seven remarkable actors: Nathan Lane, Stephen Spinella, John Glover, Stephen Bogardus, John Benjamin Hickey, Justin Kirk and Randy Becker. Loy Arcenas took an impossible design situation and made it seem as easy as it was inevitable.

Manhattan Theatre Club had done it again for me. No wonder I have never been tempted, not once, in all these years, to roam. I like to think I’m smart, too.

So once again I am wallowing in some kind of playwright’s heaven. If I’m not careful, I’ll forget to moan. This book should have come out months ago. The Love! Valour! Compassion! cast hasn’t been signed to life-indenturing contracts. The theater was too cold last night. The night before, it was too hot. There, that feels much better. The truth is, I’m worrying about the next play. Will it be any good? What’s really scary is that Manhattan Theatre Club will produce it all the same. I have no one to blame if it fails but me. That’s terrifying.

Moaning is easier.

—Terrence McNally
New York City, 1995

Nathan Lane (Buzz) and Randy Becker (Ramon) in Love! Valour! Compassion! at the Walter Kerr Theatre, 1995. (Photo by Martha Swope. Reprinted with permission from the John Willis Theatre World/Screen World Archive.)

Love! Valour! Compassion! was first presented Off Broadway at Stage I at the Manhattan Theatre Club on November I, 1994, with funds provided by AT&T. It was produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director; Barry Grove, Managing Director) and directed by Joe Mantello. The sets were by Loy Arcenas, the costumes by Jess Goldstein, the lighting was by Brian MacDevitt, and the sound was by John Kilgore. The choreography was by John Carrafa, the production stage manager was William Joseph Barnes, and the stage manager was Ira Mont.

Cast

Gregory Mitchell	Stephen Bogardus
Arthur Pape	John Benjamin Hickey
Perry Sellars	Stephen Spinella
John Jeckyll/James Jeckyll	John Glover
Buzz Hauser	Nathan Lane
Bobby Brahms	Justin Kirk
Ramon Fornos	Randy Becker

Love! Valour! Compassion! transferred to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway and opened on February 14, 1995. It was directed by Joe Mantello, the sets were by Loy Arcenas, the costumes were by Jess Goldstein, the lighting was by Brian MacDevitt, and sound was by John Kilgore. Choreography was by John Carrafa, the general manager was Victoria Bailey, the company manager was Denise Cooper, the stage managers were William Joseph Barnes and Ira Mont. The press agents were Kevin P. McAnarney/Helene Davis, and Amy Lefkowitz, and the photographer was Martha Swope.

Cast

Gregory Mitchell	Stephen Bogardus
Arthur Pape	John Benjamin Hickey
Perry Sellars	Anthony Heald
John Jeckyll/James Jeckyll	John Glover
Buzz Hauser Nathan	Lane
Bobby Brahms	Justin Kirk
Ramon Fornos	Randy Becker
UNDERSTUDIES:
Perry, Buzz, Arthur	Steven Skybell
John, James	Gregory Mitchell
Perry	Kirk Jackson
Bobby, Ramon	David Norona

For Nathan Lane

Great heart
Great soul
Great actor
Best friend

The Players

BOBBY BRAHMS: early twenties

RAMON FORNOS: early twenties

Buzz HAUSER: mid-thirties

JOHN JECKYLL: late forties

JAMES JECKYLL: his twin

GREGORY MITCHELL: early forties

ARTHUR PAPE: late thirties, early forties

PERRY SELLARS: late thirties, early forties

The action takes place in a remote house and wooded grounds by a lake in Dutchess County, two hours north of New York City, on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day weekends, respectively.