Playwright Wendy Wasserstein

Wendy Wasserstein was one of the most successful and acclaimed woman playwrights in American history. She was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1950. She received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College and her Master of Fine Arts in Playwrighting from Yale School of Drama. Her first major stage success was the play Uncommon Women, which premiered in New York in 1977. She went on to write nearly a dozen more plays, as well as several works in other genres. The Heidi Chronicles is her most famous play, and it won both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989. She was acclaimed as the first American woman playwright who put on the Broadway stage female characters that resembled the women in the audience. A number of prominent actresses played roles in Wasserstein's plays--some of whom first gained popular attention through those roles--including Sarah Jessica Parker, Joan Allen, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Swoosie Kurtz, and Francis McDormand. Wasserstein died of lymphoma in 2006 at the age of fifty-five.

Select articles from media sources about the playwright and play

Span, Paula. "Uncommon Wendy and her Broadway 'Chronicles'; Playwright Wasserstein and the Long Road Uptown." The Washington Post. 12 March 1989. 9 February 2009 <http://www.lexisnexis.com/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5746021635&format=GNBFI&sort=DATE,A,H&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5746020171&cisb=22_T5746020170&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=8075&docNo=11>.

• This article traces the process Wasserstein went through to get The Heidi Chronicles to Broadway in 1989.

Isherwood, Charles. "Wendy Wasserstein Dies at 55; Her Plays Spoke to a Generation." The New York Times. 31 January 2006. 18 February 2009 <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html>.

• This obituary gives an overview of Wasserstein's life and work.

Piepenburg, Erik. "Wendy and 'Heidi'." The New York Times Online. 31 January 2006. 18 February 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/01/31/theater/20060131_WASS_AUDIOSS.html>.

• This multimedia slideshow includes photos of The Heidi Chronicles and other plays, with commentary from theatre critic Charles Isherwood.

Feingold, Michael. "Wendy Wasserstein." The Village Voice. 24 January 2006. 18 February 2009 <http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-24/theater/wendy-wasserstein/>.

• This article is a colleague's personal reflection on Wasserstein after her death.

Traiger, Lisa. "Remembering Wendy; The Heidi Chronicles." All About Jewish Theatre. 2007. 9 February 2009. <http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=2286>.

• This article is another colleague's personal reflection on Wasserstein after her death.