New York City
Playwright Terrence McNally reunites with the theater that launched the world premieres of his most successful plays.
Terrence McNally's Tony-nominated play Mothers and Sons, which ends its Broadway run at the John Golden Theatre on June 22, has been announced as the final production of the Philadelphia Theatre Company's 2014-15 season. The production will run from February 6-March 8, 2015, rounding out the company's 40th anniversary.
The season will also include Lisa D'Amour's comic drama Detroit; John Patrick Shanley's Tony-nominated play Outside Mullingar, which made its Broadway debut this past season with Manhattan Theatre Club; Kimber Lee's brownsville song (b-side for tray), the hit of this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays; and Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair's musical whodunit Murder for Two, nominated for this year's Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards.
Mothers and Sons centers around Katharine Gerard (played by Tyne Daly in the Broadway production), the mother of a man who died 20 years ago from an AIDS-related illness. Still stricken with grief over her son's death, she makes a surprise visit to the home of her son's ex-lover Cal, now a successful money manager living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his husband, Will, and their son, Bud.
"PTC's relationship with Terrence McNally goes back 25 years," said Executive Producing Director Sara Garonzik, "covering not only the world premiere productions of the Tony Award-winning Master Class, Some Men, Unusual Acts of Devotion, and Golden Age, but also the Philadelphia premieres of Love! Valour! Compassion!, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. We are thrilled to include Terrence's timely and compassionate play as part of our 40th Anniversary celebration. I think audiences connect so deeply with his work because his characters are so richly drawn, with equal measures of unflinching honesty and empathy for what makes them — and us — human."