Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally, known for plays including Love! Valour! Compassion! and for the musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, died on Tuesday of complications related to the coronavirus, his representative said.

Spokesman Matt Polk said McNally, 81, died in a hospital in Florida in the United States. The Broadway theatre veteran was a lung cancer survivor and had lived with a chronic respiratory condition.

McNally's career spanned six decades, encompassing plays, musicals and operas. It ranged from the AIDS drama Lips Together, Teeth Apart to domestic drama Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and the stage musical adaptation of the movie The Full Monty.

His plays and musicals explored how people connect - or fail to. With wit and thoughtfulness, he tackled the strains in families, war, and relationships and probed the spark and costs of creativity. He was an openly gay writer who wrote about homophobia and love.

"I like to work with people who are a lot more talented and smarter than me, who make fewer mistakes than I do, and who can call me out when I do something lazy," he told LA Stage Times in 2013. "A lot of people stop learning in life, and that's their tragedy."