Brody's Notes... Tony Award Winning Playwright Terrance McNally Marries In DC

Terrance McNally & Tom Kirdahy Exchange Vows

Photo By Jacquelyn Martin The Associated Press

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Apr 7 | While argument and outrage has erupted over Gallaudet University's decision to allow a student production of Terrance McNally's controversial play 'Corpus Christi' to go forward, across town, the 71-year-old playwright and his partner, Tom Kirdahy, 46, exchanged vows on the banks of the Potomac River with the new same-sex marriage law in the nation's capital.  
According to Associated Press Washington Correspondent Brett Zongker: 
During the small ceremony under a tree blooming with white flowers, Kirdahy read from a scene in McNally's play "Corpus Christi," in which a gay Christ-like figure named Joshua marries two apostles;

"It is good when two men love as James and Bartholomew do and we recognize their union," Kirdahy read. "Love each other in sickness and in health."

Kirdahy, a lawyer and Broadway producer, choked up as he recalled seeing the play before meeting McNally. 

"The first time I saw it, I knew that I could love the writer of those words," he said. 

Once they met, McNally said, it was love at first sight.  Since then, they have battled McNally's lung cancer and worked together, as well as apart. After nearly 10 years and a clean bill of health, it feels like a lifetime, McNally said. 
Actress Tyne Daly, currently staring in McNally's "Master Class" at the Kennedy Center festival, served as a witness at the sunlit wedding and read Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Actors John Glover and Malcolm Gets, both starring in "Traviata," also looked on. 
The Rev. George Walker of the People's Congregational United Church of Christ presented them as husbands and signed their marriage certificate. It will be recognized back home in New York City. The couple had been civilly united in Vermont in 2001, but McNally said another ceremony was in order.  

"We want the 'M' word," McNally said. "We don't like separate but equal. We want equal."