Master Class

by Terrence McNally

Overview

Master Class is a pyrotechnical theater—fireworks in a contained space where Maria Callas is brought back to life in Sturm und Drang. Inspired by a series of master classes the great diva conducted at Juilliard toward the end of her career, this drama puts Maria Callas at center stage again as she coaxes, prods, and inspires students—"victims" as she calls them—into giving the performances of their lives while revealing her own. As she slips off into memories, we experience her days at La Scala, her marriage to Meneghini, and her great doomed love for Aristotle Onassis. But the dazzling theatricality comes from Callas's emotional explosions, her cutting wit, and the soaring music as each student sings an aria that exposes the Divina's vulnerabilities … and her genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822215219
Publisher:	Dramatists Play Service, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/01/1996
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Terrence McNally is the author of numerous plays, including Love! Valour! Compassion! (winner of the Tony Award for best play), The Ritz, and Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, which was made into a feature film starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the books for the musicals The Rink, and Kiss of the Spider Woman (winner of the Tony Award for the best book of a musical). Other successes include Lips Together, Teeth Apart and The Lisbon Traviata. McNally has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also serves as vice president for the Dramatists Guild, the national orgainzation of playwrights, composers, and lyricists. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

...For Mr. McNally, the play demonstrates his ability to create rich, vivid, satisfying theater...MASTER CLASS is an unembarrassed, involving meditation on Callas' life and the nature of her art. Such subjects are not easily dramatized, certainly not with this brio.

NY Times

Terrence McNally's new play MASTER CLASS...will be talked about for years to come whenever people point to theater experiences that genuinely deserve to be labeled by the overused word great.

Hollywood Reporter

It is Terrence McNally's total triumph in his MASTER CLASS...This is a night to remember.

NY Post

Get a ticket: MASTER CLASS is mesmerizing theater.

Star-Ledger