One of the most prominent playwrights working today, McNally is known for both mainstream hits like Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and for spotlighting gay issues in works like Love! Valour! Compassion!.

Raised in Texas, McNally moved to New York to attend Columbia and earned his first break a year after graduation when he submitted one of his plays to the Actor's Studio: Although the theater ultimately passed on the work, they invited him to join the company as a stage manager. He soon became the protégé (and the lover) of playwright Edward Albee (not that Albee's tutelage earned McNally much success in his early years as a playwright). His And Things That Go Bump in 1965 closed after just two weeks on Broadway, and Here's Where I Belong shuttered after its opening night. By the late '70s, McNally's career was in tatters, but Lynne Meadows, artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club, helped rescue him from his slump. His first big hit was 1987's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; the first run starred Kathy Bates, and a film adaptation starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer followed in 1991.

McNally is regarded as one of the foremost chroniclers of gay life: Several years before Tony Kushner and Jonathan Larson, he was one of the first playwrights to tackle the AIDS epidemic head-on in works like Andre's Mother and Lips Together, Teeth Apart. He's probably best known for his 1994 hit Love! Valour! Compassion!, the story of eight gay men who convene over the course of a summer, starring his friend and one-time muse Nathan Lane. In addition to his many plays, McNally has also written the libretti for several musicals, including The Rink, The Full Monty, and Ragtime. [Image via Getty]