Tony winner glad Moore doing his ‘Play’

While he can’t be here for the Hawaii premiere of his “It’s Only a Play” comedy, four-time Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally said he is elated about making his latest Broadway hit available to KHON news anchorman and actor Joe Moore and his cast.

“Hawaii was the first to ask,” said McNally, 76, of requests to produce the play after its June 7 finale on Broadway. “It’s that simple.”

“It’s Only a Play” opens an 11-performance run Thursday at the Hawaii Theatre. It’s the latest hit by McNally, who previously earned Tonys for his dramas “Love! Valour! Compassion!” and  “Master Class,” plus trophies for best book for a musical for “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and “Ragtime.”

McNally hoped to be in the audience here but is in the midst of prepping an unnamed new musical while overseeing the fate of his Tony-nominated “The Visit,” a musical starring Chita Rivera that was nominated but did not win at the June 7 awards show.

“I am very proud and excited Hawaii is doing ‘It’s Only a Play,’” McNally said in an email. “I’m only sorry I won’t be there in person. But Peter Austen, the playwright, will be there at every performance.”

Austen is the playwright character who mirrors McNally’s life as a Broadway icon.

“There’s more than enough of me in him,” he said.

The play is a riotous glimpse of a Broadway ritual of anticipation and aggravation. A producer, a playwright, a director and a star of a production titled “The Golden Egg” assemble in the producer’s apartment to await the overnight reviews while downstairs a party is in full swing — with no shortage of rants, angst, name-dropping and laughs.

Moore, whose stage forays have become a summertime tradition, nabbed the rights to the offstage comedy.

“I wrote a snail-mail letter to McNally, told him how much I loved the play after seeing a preview, and told him I was seeking rights to do a benefit run here for the Hawaii Theatre,” he said. Moore portrays James Wicker, Nathan Lane’s role in the recent New York run.

Also starring are veteran TV actor Linda Purl (“The Office,” “Matlock”), Ryan Wuestewald, Paul Mitri, Cathy Foy, Tom Holowach and Dezmond Gilla.

Logan Reed, director of the New York production, will be at the helm of the Hawaii show as well.

“The opportunity to direct the first production of a play outside of Broadway is a thrilling endeavor for any director, as you want to preserve what made it so appealing and intoxicating on Broadway while also allowing the new cast to truly make it their own, unique production,” he said in an email.

“Honolulu is thousands of miles away from NYC yet the hunger for this hilarious and joyful play is already apparent, which not only proves the amazing appeal of Terrence McNally but also a desire to get a sneak peek behind the scenes of a Broadway opening … a hilarious romp that takes us behind the curtain to witness the passion and drive of artists with all of their failings and successes. And the universality of that story is something that I believe audiences everywhere will grasp onto.”

Here’s more from McNally:

Question: Do you generally lord over the rights to your plays?

Answer: “Hawaii was the first place to ask! I also knew it was a benefit and wanted to lend any help I could to support this vital theater. … I’m very curious how well the play travels from the mainland.”

Q: Do you usually try to get a firsthand glimpse of a regional production?

A: “I don’t have any hard and set rules; location is often a motivation. Or the chance to see a particular actor I’ve admired: Norma Aleandro in Buenos Aires for ‘Master Class’ or Fanny Ardant in Paris in the same play. Also, I have relationships with certain regional theaters and I tend to go to their productions of my plays. I certainly don’t see every production but I’m always glad when I do. I usually learn something about the play, no matter the quality of the production. The joy of theater is that it never — it cannot, in fact — repeats itself. Every production, every performance is different.”

Q: Your Broadway hits embrace laughter mingled with tension. With such diversity, do you have a favorite project?

A: “I try not to repeat myself as a writer. I also try not to repeat myself in life! That is why there is no such thing as a typical ‘McNally’ play. There are themes I revisit and re-explore but when I do the play is usually in a very different style or uses very different theater techniques. I don’t have a favorite play but there are none I would disown either. I think I have gotten better as I have gotten older and I hope the best is yet to come.”

 Q: “It’s Only a Play” dwells on sweating out the overnight reviews. Do you personally read most reviews? Has social media and technology changed the game?

A: “I stopped reading reviews only in the past five or six years. If I could do it all over again, I would have never read them in the first place. The good ones are never good enough and the bad ones have a staying power that astonishes me. I can still quote verbatim some of the reviews my first play got in 1965.

“The fact that the audience is now bold enough to have opinions of their own and tweet and Twitter and chatroom them without depending 100 percent on the critics is a good development. I welcome the new technology (social media) except when people tweet during a performance or spread ill will and not critical thinking on the Internet.”

Q: As a prolific Broadway luminary, are you concerned about the spiraling cost of tickets? Premium VIP seating often means $350 to $750 for tickets with a $150 to $160 ceiling. Are producers becoming scalpers of sorts?

A: “I’m not really qualified to answer this one. … I do know that theater tickets are too high and making it difficult to develop the younger audience it’s going to need. Theater should never be something that you don’t attend because you can’t afford to go. I spent four years at Columbia happily sitting in the last row of the second balcony watching the likes of Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, Paul Newman, Laurence Olivier, Ethel Merman. … The magic of great theater travels up there, I can assure you. Young people maybe have to understand that not everyone gets to sit in house seats. But they all see the same show. It’s like tourist class on a plane. We all get to where we’re going at the same time. First class doesn’t get there an hour earlier.”

Q: What was the last play/musical you saw and the next project you’re working on?

A: “I saw ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ last night and I’m seeing ‘Skylight’ tonight. I liked ‘The Curious Incident’ quite enough and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the revival of the David Hare piece. I liked it 20 years ago.

“But how I wish there were more new American plays on Broadway. I wish we had the equivalent of the National Theatre of England, which produces new British plays and takes big risks on young writers. Broadway is very faint-hearted at the moment. I’m proud ‘The Visit’ breaks the mold somewhat.

“My next project is the world premiere of ‘Great Scott,’ an opera for which I have written an original libretto with music by Jake Heggie. It opens Oct. 30 at the Dallas Opera, which commissioned the piece. With luck, it will travel the world, like our last collaboration, ‘Dead Man Walking.’”