Master Class is a play by Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...

, with incidental music by Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

, Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Puccini

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

, and Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

.

The play originally was staged by the Philadelphia Theatre Company

Philadelphia Theatre Company

The Philadelphia Theatre Company is a 501 non-profit theater company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1974 as The Philadelphia Company by Robert Hedley and Jean Harrison. The company has produced over 100 world and Philadelphia premieres and has hosted dozens of nationally...

 and the Mark Taper Forum

Mark Taper Forum

The Mark Taper Forum is a 739 seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles...

. After twelve previews, the Broadway production

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, directed by Leonard Foglia

Leonard Foglia

Leonard Foglia is an American theatre director, librettist, and novelist.Foglia made his Broadway debut as the assistant director of The Heidi Chronicles in 1989...

, opened on November 15, 1995 at the John Golden Theatre

John Golden Theatre

The John Golden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 252 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Designed in a Moorish style along with the adjacent Royale Theatre by architect Herbert J. Krapp for Irwin Chanin, it opened as the Theatre Masque on February 24 1927 with the play Puppets of Passion...

, where it ran for 598 performances. The original cast included Zoe Caldwell

Zoe Caldwell

Zoe Caldwell, OBE is an Australian-born actress.-Early life:She was born as Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Australia and was raised in the suburb of Balwyn in Yongala Street. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber and her mother, Zoe, was a taxi dancer. Caldwell's mother, Zoe, had a Peugeot of 1950 vintage...

, Audra McDonald

Audra McDonald

Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. She currently stars in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun...

, Karen Kay Cody, David Loud

David Loud

David Loud is an American music supervisor, music director, conductor, vocal and dance arranger, pianist and actor...

, and Jay Hunter Morris

Jay Hunter Morris

Jay Hunter Morris is a Texas-born operatic tenor.Morris was raised in Paris, Texas, and attended Paris Junior College. He also attended Baylor University, Southern Methodist University and Julliard School of Music....

. Caldwell and McDonald won Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

s for their performances in 1996.

Patti LuPone

Patti LuPone

Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...

 and Dixie Carter

Dixie Carter

Dixie Virginia Carter was an American film, television and stage actress, best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker in the CBS sitcom Designing Women...

 subsequently replaced Caldwell as Callas and Alaine Rodin

Alaine Rodin

Alaine Rodin is an American operatic soprano who has sung leading roles both in the United States and internationally.-Biography:A native of Berkeley California, she studied at the San Francisco Conservatory and the Juilliard School and trained with the Lyric Opera of Chicago's Young Artists...

 replaced McDonald later in the run. LuPone played the role in the London production and Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...

 played the role in the national tour. Tyne Daly

Tyne Daly

Tyne Daly is an American stage and screen actress, widely known for her work as Detective Mary Beth Lacey in the television series Cagney & Lacey and as Maxine Gray in the television series Judging Amy. She is also known for her role as Alice Henderson in television series Christy...

 recently starred as Callas in a new production of the play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

Plot

At its core is the diva

Diva

A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna"....

 Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

, a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly drop-dead funny pedagogue holding a voice master class

Master class

A master class is a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also painting, drama, or any of the arts....

. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students who parade before her, she retreats into recollections about the glories of her own life and career. Included in her musings are her younger years as an ugly duckling, her fierce hatred of her rivals, the unforgiving press that savaged her early performances, her triumphs at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

, and her affair with Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Sokratis Onassis , commonly called Ari or Aristo Onassis, was a prominent Greek shipping magnate.- Early life :Onassis was born in Karatass, a suburb of Smyrna to Socrates and Penelope Onassis...

. It culminates into a monologue about sacrifice taken in the name of art.

Awards and nominations

Master Class won both the 1996 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play and the 1996 Tony Award for Best Play

Tony Award for Best Play

The Tony Award for Best Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theatre, including musical theatre, honoring productions on Broadway in New York. It currently takes place in mid-June each year.There was no award in the Tony's first year...

.