Terrence McNally, Vol. 2: Collected Works (Contemporary Playwrights)

I am very grateful to Smith and Kraus for making these uncut versions of two of my earliest plays available. They are essential to the full story of who I am.

Plays, especially produced plays, have a way of getting "lost." So much happens to a text in the stress and strain and trial and error of production that the final "published" version often differs significantly from the play the author originally wrote.

Indeed, my first play, And Things That Go Bump In the Night, was cut and re-written so savagely and so frantically during rehersals and previews -- with my full acquiesence at the time (there is no one more terrified or malleable than a first-time playwright) and to my subsequent regret (there is no one wiser than a seasoned playwright) -- that what opened at the Royale Theatre and was published was not the play I had set out to write.