Terrence McNally's lifetime award speech at the Tonys was ignored — but it was the most important of the night

Chicago Tribune: “Lifetime achievement,” said the writer Terrence McNally at the Tony Awards last weekend. “Not a moment too soon.”

That dry opening joke by the 80-year-old author of such dramatic masterworks as “Master Class,” “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune” and the criminally underappreciated “Mothers and Sons,” not to mention the books to the musicals “Ragtime,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” and “The Full Monty,” and the libretto to the opera “Dead Man Walking” and countless other screenplays, teleplays and other works, was about the most awkward gag of the night.