Wendy Wasserstein

Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), American playwright, noted for her bittersweet plays that focus on the struggles of contemporary American women. Her plays also reflect her Jewish heritage and the influence of Russian playwright and prose writer Anton Chekhov.

Wendy Wasserstein was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. She studied at Mount Holyoke College, City College of New York, and the Yale School of Drama. While she was studying at City College, Wasserstein’s play Any Woman Can’t (1973) was produced off-Broadway (see Broadway), prompting her to pursue a career as a playwright.

Wasserstein’s first major play, Uncommon Women and Others (1977), which she began writing while studying at Yale, was based on her years at the all-female Mount Holyoke College. The drama concerns a group of five women who reunite six years after their college graduation and consider whether they have achieved their goals and upheld their ideals. Wasserstein gained national recognition when the play was televised by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1978. Her play Isn’t It Romantic, which was first produced in 1981 and was revised in 1983, follows the lives of two women, one Jewish and one Protestant, contemplating marriage and motherhood.

Wasserstein’s best-known play, The Heidi Chronicles (1988), traces the life of art historian Heidi Holland from high school through the social change of the 1960s and 1970s to her life and career in New York in the 1980s. The work earned Wasserstein a Pulitzer Prize (1989), a Tony Award for best play (1989), and numerous other awards. In 1995 she adapted The Heidi Chronicles for television.

Wasserstein’s other plays include When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (1975; written with American playwright Christopher Durang); The Sorrows of Gin (1979; adapted for PBS from a short story by American writer John Cheever); Tender Offer (1983); Miami (1986); The Man in a Case (1986; adapted from a short story by Chekhov); The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), which chronicles the story of three Jewish American sisters who gather in London, England; An American Daughter (1997), Wasserstein’s most directly political work, which portrays one woman’s experience after being nominated to a high political post; and Old Money (2000), about different generations of rich New Yorkers. Her play Third, about the interaction between a liberal college professor and her conservative student, was produced in New York in late 2005, shortly before Wasserstein’s death from cancer.

Wasserstein also authored a number of other types of works. She wrote the children’s book Pamela’s First Musical (1996); the screenplay for the motion picture The Object of My Affection (1998); two collections of essays, Bachelor Girls (1990) and Shiksa Goddess (2001); Sloth (2005), a self-help book parody; and the novel Elements of Style (2006). (See also American Literature (Drama); Drama and Dramatic Arts.)