About the Play:

Mothers and Sons is a full-length drama by Terrence McNally. At turns funny and powerful, Mothers and Sons is about a mother who pays a surprise visit to the New York apartment of her late son's ex-partner, who is now married to another man and has a young son. Challenged to face how society has changed around her – without her – generations collide as she revisits the past and is finally able to see the life her son might have led.

Mothers and Sons is a provocative play that explores our evolving understanding of family in today's world. Katharine Gerard is stuck in a past that existed only in her expectations. She suffered the untimely loss of her 29-year-old son Andre to the AIDS epidemic that ravaged a generation of gay men, a loss that also devastated Andre's partner Cal. Fast forward two decades: Katharine, recently widowed, shows up unannounced at Cal's New York apartment with her prejudices intact. Cal is now a husband (to Will, a younger man with only secondhand knowledge of the AIDS crisis) and a father (to a young son, Bud). His current life would have been practically unimaginable in the era in which Cal and Andre lived and loved. Katharine and Cal circle each other with both the shared pathos of their past and the realization of how much has changed for a generation of gay men facing a future they – and society – never imagined. A provocative follow-up to the author's 10-minute playlet Andre's Mother, this play is a deeply compassionate and touching look at the transformative nature of forgiveness and the evolving definition of family.

Mothers and Sons premiered in 2013 at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania. It opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre in 2014, enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres, and remains a popular choice for repertory, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female, 2 male, 1 child

What people say:

"Terrence McNally is a probing and enduring dramatist. A resonant elegy for a ravaged generation, Mothers and Sons wears its significance defiantly." — New York Times

"Eloquent, exceptionally timely and intensely resonant. A moving reflection on a changed America." — Chicago Tribune

"Fantastic! McNally captures a moment of hope and promise… Mothers and Sons feels like the sun on your face." — NBC New York

"A masterpiece. Terrence McNally is one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theatre world has yet produced. Mothers and Sons is profound. Heartbreaking. Triumphant." — New York Observer

About the Playwright:

Terrence McNally (1938-2020) was an American playwright whose career has spanned six decades. Initially active in the burgeoning Off-Broadway theatre movement in the 1960s, he is one of the few playwrights of his generation to have successfully made the transition to Broadway, and, in the process, passed from avant-garde to mainstream acclaim. In addition to four Tony Awards for his plays, he received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller grant, and was a recipient of the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Tony Awards' Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre Honor. He is considered one of America's great playwrights.