Terrence McNally, the playwright who was honored with a lifetime achievement award at last year’s Tony Awards, has died at the age of 81. The cause was complications from the novel coronavirus, his spokesman confirmed to the New York Times.

Known for his intricately wrought dialogue and striking emotional range, he wrote inventive plays that often feature music and comment on the lives of musicians, with a special emphasis on opera. The prolific artist wrote over 50 plays and librettos over the course of five decades; he also did the screenplays for four film adaptations. In addition to the four Tonys he won for Master Class, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valor! Compassion!, and Ragtime, he won an Emmy, a Pulitzer, two Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2018 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Born in Florida in 1939, McNally was raised in Texas before moving to New York to attend Columbia University. After his Broadway debut in 1964, Things That Go Bump in the Night, he gained a reputation for including gay characters and themes in ways that went beyond subtext. His work often engaged in pointed political critique, like Bringing It All Back Home and Botticelli, satires about the Vietnam War, and his later plays that delved into the AIDS crisis.

In the mid-2000s, McNally was diagnosed with lung cancer, and also suffered from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. After meeting in 2001, McNally married theater producer Tom Kirdahy in a Washington D.C. ceremony in 2010.

As he approached the age of 80, his work didn’t slow down. His last new play, Fire and Air, premiered in 2018. Last year, Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald starred in a revival of his 1987 play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. He also chased inventive ideas, publishing a script in T Magazine last April, about an imaginary scene in Heaven the day after the 2024 Inauguration.

Though he died in Sarasota, he was a longtime resident of New York City. “One of the reasons I choose to live in New York City — and have since I was 17 — is that you go out onto the street and there are so many different kinds of people, and every one of them has a story,” he said last spring. “These are tumultuous, rich times for a writer. All you need is ears and a heart.”

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

— Meghan Markle’s U.K. Farewell Tour Was a Master Class in Revenge-Dressing

— Is Hand Sanitizer the Last Luxury Good Left?

— The Queen Has a Plan for Working During Quarantine

— Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, Heidi Klum, and Other Celebs Join You in Self-Quarantine

— Inside the Survivalist Bunker Where Some Wealthy People Hope to Ride Out Coronavirus

— Broadway’s Unprecedented Closure Puts New Shows, and Even the Tonys, in Jeopardy

— From the Archive: How Thieves Raided the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Succeeded in Pulling Off the Biggest Art Heist in U.S. History

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss a story.