Every Act of Life

As good as any biographical documentary I have ever seen. A portrait of a lovely, brilliantly creative and generous man, drawn by a remarkable group of friends and colleagues who have worked with him, loved with him, celebrated and cried with him. Anyone interested in the theatre should not miss it.

Such a prolific writer! I had seen many of terrence mcnally's works on television and in the theater, but watching this (currently on free Tubi streaming channel) i hadn't realized just how many great works had been written by him. And the ones he didn't write, were probably written by his partners over the years. Ed albee! Wow, the combined output of those two. It seems like the difficult, oppressed life he had in texas really gave him inspiration and ideas that came out later when he came to new york. Similar to the christmas cactus my mother used to put in the closet for a month... the stress forced it to produce a huge, colorful flower. Good commentary by so many actors, fellow writers and directors; it might have been useful to interview some of his detractors regarding "corpus christi. Playing with redemption"; they show the protestors, and talk about it briefly, but no quotes or interviews come from those protesting it's presentation. I guess they wanted to keep a positive mood for this program. If you've seen any of mcnally's work, you'll probably really dig this tribute to him! And you've probably seen some of his work without knowing it. Written and directed by jeff kaufman, whose specialty seems to be documentaries. Really good.

Every Act of Life (2018) is a documentary directed by Jeff Kaufman.

It details the life of the prolific, successful playwright Terrence McNally. McNally is openly gay, and many of his plays address the issue of what it means to be gay in the United States.

McNally has won numerous awards, including four Tony Awards. At age 79 he's still writing. He is probably the best known and successful living playwright in the United States.

A documentary about Terrence McNally can't miss. That's certainly true of this biography. It's a solid, careful piece of work. We see quite a bit of historical footage, and many interviews with McNally and his friends and colleagues.

McNally's life has had it's share of great highs and terrible lows. Still, if what we see on screen is true, he's doing well and is happy and reasonably healthy in 2018.

I'm really a fan of movies, not theater, so this film wasn't as meaningful to me as it would be to someone who is a true theater fan. Still, it worked for me and I enjoyed it.

We saw this movie at The Little Theatre, as part of Rochester's excellent ImageOut, the LGBT Film Festival. It will work well on the small screen.