Broadway.Com to Present Live Reading of Terrence McNally’s “Lips Together, Teeth Apart”

Starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Zachary Quinto, and Ari Graynor

Directed by Trip Cullman

Livestream Will Benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids’ Covid-19 Emergency Relief Fund

Broadway.com, with producers Eric Kuhn & Justin Mikita, will present a live reading of Terrence McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart on Monday, April 6, 2020, at 8:00 PM EDT. Benefitting the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund, the livestream will be dedicated to McNally, who passed away on March 24, due to coronavirus complications. Viewers can watch on Broadway.com and its Facebook and YouTube channels.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart will star Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Sam Truman, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Sally Truman, Zachary Quintoas John Haddock, and Ari Graynor as Chloe Haddock. It will be directed by Trip Cullman. The play — which The New York Timescalled one of “Mr. McNally’s finest” — chronicles two straight couples visiting the Fire Island home of a relative who recently died of AIDS during the height of the pandemic.

“Terrence used his work to make seemingly insurmountable societal issues seem surmountable through his belief in our unwavering human spirit,” said Tom Kirdahy, the husband of the late McNally and a member of the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Board of Trustees. “Seeing Terrence’s rage, humor, love, and empathy in the face of a virus feels right during this time.”

Broadway.com, the theater world’s premier online content provider, recently presented the successful livestream return of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” on March 22, raising close to $700K for The Actors Fund. Lips Together, Teeth Apart will be the first venture produced by Broadway.com in partnership with Eric Kuhn & Justin Mikita (The Inheritance and Oklahoma!).

Said Kuhn & Mikita, “Theater has always been about bringing people together. For our first livestream play reading, we couldn’t think of a playwright that represented that more than Terrence. In these uncertain times we are thrilled to partner with Broadway Cares and provide audiences some moments of relief.”

Terrence McNally had a remarkably far-ranging career, including a new work on Broadway in each of the last six decades. In 2018 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was a 2019 recipient of a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. He won four Tony Awards, for his plays Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and his musical books for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime. He wrote a number of TV scripts, including “Andre’s Mother,” for which he won an Emmy Award. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards from the Dramatists Guild. In 1996 he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He wrote the libretto for the operas Great Scott and Dead Man Walking, both with music by Jake Heggie. Other plays include Mothers and Sons; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; The Lisbon Traviata; Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; A Perfect Ganesh; The Visit; The Full Monty; Corpus Christi; Bad Habits; Next; The Ritz; Anastasia; It’s Only a Play; Where Has Tommy Flowers Gone?; and The Stendhal Syndrome.

The Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS’ COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund is helping those onstage, backstage and behind the scenes impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and work shutdown. With every passing day that theatres remain dark, entertainment professionals face unprecedented health and financial challenges requiring immediate attention and resources. More than 20 Broadway producers are now offering a $1 million challenge match to double the impact of new donations. To donate visitbroadwaycares.org/help2020.

The COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund is providing urgent additional resources for the vital social service programs of The Actors Fund, including emergency financial assistance, health insurance, counseling, and the operation of The Actors Fund’s Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources, and generosity of the American theater community, since 1988 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised more than $300 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the major supporter of the social service programs at The Actors Fund, including the HIV/AIDS Initiative, the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative, and The Friedman Health Center for the Performing Arts. Broadway Cares also awards annual grants to more than 450 AIDS and family service organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C., providing lifesaving medication, healthy meals, counseling, and emergency assistance.