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Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright whose work probes, with humour and sensibility, the predicament facing educated women who came of age in the second half of the 20th century. $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
Celebrating the birth & legacy of
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“Anyone who is considered funny will tell you, sometimes without even your asking, that deep inside they are very serious, neurotic, introspective people.” — Wendy Wasserstein
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Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright whose work probes, with humour and sensibility, the predicament facing educated women who came of age in the second half of the 20th century. Her play The Heidi Chronicles was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Tony Award for Best Play in 1989.
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Ms. Wasserstein was born on October 18, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York to Morris Wasserstein, a wealthy textile executive, and his wife, Lola Schleifer, who moved to the United States from Poland when her father was accused of being a spy. The youngest of five siblings, Wasserstein "once described her mother as being like ‘Auntie Mame.’” Lola Wasserstein reportedly inspired some of her daughter's characters. Educated at Mount Holyoke College (B.A., 1971) and City College of the City University of New York (M.A., 1973), Ms. Wasserstein studied creative writing with playwright Israel Horovitz and novelist Joseph Heller. In 1976 she received an M.F.A. from Yale University. Wasserstein commented that her parents allowed her to go to Yale only because they were certain she would meet an eligible lawyer there, get married, and lead a conventional life as a wife and mother.
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“Feminism has affected me more in my writing than in a specifically political way. Sitting down to write a play that has three parts for women over forty, I think, is political.” — Wendy Wasserstein
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Although appreciative of the critical acclaim for her comedic streak, she described her work as "a political act", wherein sassy dialogue and farcical situations mask deep, resonant truths about intelligent, independent women living in a world still ingrained with traditional roles and expectations.
Her first play, Any Woman Can’t (1973), is a cutting farce on one of her major themes—a woman’s attempts to succeed in an environment traditionally dominated by men.
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In 1975 she wrote her breakthrough work, Uncommon Women and Others (her graduate thesis at Yale). The play was workshopped at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in 1977 and a full version of the play was produced in 1977 Off-Broadway with Glenn Close, Jill Eikenberry and Swoosie Kurtz. (It was subsequently produced for PBS with Meryl Streep). While at Yale, she co-wrote a musical with fellow student Christopher Durang, When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth. (She would later write the book to two other musicals, Miami and Pamela’s First Musical). |
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Isn’t It Romantic (1981) explores women’s attitudes toward marriage and society’s expectations of women. In The Heidi Chronicles (1988) a successful art historian discovers that her independent life choices have alienated her from men as well as women. (The play was revived on Broadway in 2015 starring Elisabeth Moss). The Sisters Rosensweig (1992) continued the theme into middle age and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play. Later plays include An American Daughter (1997), Old Money (2000) and Third (2005).
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Wasserstein’s other works include an adaptation for television of the John Cheever short story, The Sorrows of Gin (1979) and The Man in a Case (1986), an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s short story. She also wrote several collections of essays, including Shiksa Goddess (2001). Ms. Wasserstein died on January 30, 2006 of lymphoma at the age of 55. The night after she died, Broadway’s lights were dimmed in her honor. |
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“Her heroines -- intelligent and successful but also riddled with self-doubt -- sought enduring love a little ambivalently, but they didn't always find it, and their hard-earned sense of self-worth was often shadowed by the frustrating knowledge that American women's lives continued to be measured by their success at capturing the right man. Ms. Wasserstein drew on her own experience as a smart, well-educated, funny Manhattanite who wasn't particularly lucky in romance to create heroines in a similar mold, women who embraced the essential tenets of the feminist movement but didn't have the stomach for stridency.”— The New York Times
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Portions of this biography were taken from Playbill.com, Brittania.com and an article by Charles Isherwood for The New York Times.
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Learn More About
WENDY WASSERSTEIN:
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We will celebrate the birth of Wendy Wasserstein with a performance from one of her plays by Actors Co-op company member, Treva Tegtmeier!
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