Wendy Wasserstein (October
18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White
Professor-at-Large at Cornell University
. She received the
Tony Award for Best Play and the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in
1989 for her play,
The Heidi
Chronicles.
Biography
Early years
Wasserstein was born in Brooklyn, New
York
to Morris Wasserstein, a wealthy textile executive,
and his wife, Lola Schleifer, an amateur dancer who moved to the
United States from Poland when her father was accused of being a
spy. Lola Wasserstein reportedly inspired some of her
daughter's characters. Wendy was one of five siblings, including
brother
Bruce Wasserstein.
Her
maternal grandfather was Simon Schleifer, a prominent Polish
Jewish playwright who moved to Paterson, New
Jersey
and became a Hebrew school principal.
A graduate
of The Calhoun School[84831]in Manhattan, Wasserstein earned a B.A. in
history from Mount Holyoke College
in 1971, an M.A. in creative writing from City College of
New York
, and an M.F.A. in 1976 from the Yale School of Drama, where her
classmates included playwright Christopher Durang. In 1990 she received
an honoris causa Doctor of Humane Letters degree from
Mount Holyoke
College and in 2002 Wasserstein received an honoris
causa Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College
.
Career
Wasserstein's first production of note was
Uncommon Women and
Others (her graduate thesis at Yale), a play which reflected her
experiences as a student at, and an alumna of, Mount Holyoke
College. A full version of the play was produced in
1977 off-Broadway with
Glenn Close,
Jill Eikenberry, and
Swoosie Kurtz playing the lead roles. The play
was subsequently produced for
PBS with
Meryl Streep replacing Close.
In 1989, she won the
Tony Award, the
Susan Smith Blackburn
Prize, and the
Pulitzer
Prize for Drama for her play
The Heidi Chronicles.
Her plays, which explore topics ranging from feminism to family to
ethnicity to pop culture, include
The Sisters Rosensweig,
Isn’t It
Romantic,
An American
Daughter,
Old
Money, and her most recent work which opened in 2005,
Third.
During her career, which spanned nearly four decades, Wasserstein
wrote eleven plays, winning a Tony Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a New
York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, and an Outer
Critics Circle Award.
In addition, she wrote the screenplay for the 1998 film
The Object of My
Affection, which starred
Jennifer Aniston and
Paul Rudd.
Wasserstein is described as an author of women's identity crises.
"Her heroines -- intelligent and successful but also riddled with
self-doubt -- sought enduring love a little ambivalently, but they
did not 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." 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. 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.
Pamela's First Musical, written with
Cy Coleman and
David
Zippel, based on Wasserstein's children's book, received its
world premiere in a concert staging at Town Hall in New York City
on May 18, 2008.
She wrote the libretto
Best Friends, based on
Claire Booth Luce's play
The Women, but left it incomplete when
she died. It was completed by
Christopher Durang, set by
Deborah Drattell, and is in development
with
Lauren Flanigan.
Personal life
Wasserstein gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Jane Wasserstein, in
1999, when she was 48 years old. The child's difficult birth was
three months premature, and is recorded in Wasserstein's collection
of essays,
Shiksa Goddess. Wasserstein, who was not
married, never publicly identified her daughter's father.
Wasserstein was hospitalized with
lymphoma
in December 2005, and died on January 30, 2006, aged 55. The news
of Wasserstein's death was unexpected because her illness had not
been widely publicized outside the theatre community.
The night after she
died, Broadway
's lights were dimmed in her honor. In
addition to her daughter, Wasserstein was survived by her mother,
Lola, and two siblings--businessman
Bruce Wasserstein, ( deceased ) and
Wilburton Inn owner Georgette Wasserstein Levis.
Bibliography
Plays
Screenplays
Books
Essays
Awards
References
External links
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