Wendy Wasserstein Biography

With “The Heidi Chronicles” Wendy Wasserstein cemented her place as the first great playwright of an unspoken generation. Today, The Custom Made Theatre Blog takes a look at her life and work.

Wendy Wasserstein was born on October 18, 1950 in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children in a struggling Jewish family. Her father, a textile manufacturer, patented velveteen and, with new found finances, the family moved to Manhattan when she was 12. There Wasserstein attended plays and while moved and inspired, was also distressed that she was not seeing smart, strong, witty women, like herself, represented onstage.

Wasserstein attended Mount Holyoke College and graduated in 1971. She proceeded to get an MFA in creative writing at City College, where she wrote her first produced play, “Any Woman Can't.” André Bishop, the artistic director of Playwright’s Horizons, produced “Any Woman Can’t” in 1973 and went on to produce almost all of Wasserstein’s plays.

Bishop was just one of a number of lifelong friends Wasserstein soon made in the New York theater scene. Another who shared Wasserstein’s wry humor was Christopher Durang, a playwright who first approached her by saying, “You look so bored, you must be very bright.” Durang and Wasserstein met as members of the Yale University School of Drama playwrighting class of 1976. There Wasserstein found that not only were plays not being written about women like her, but no one like her was writing plays; she was the only woman in the thirteen person class. Her Yale thesis project was also her first widely successful play, “Uncommon Women,” a play about eight Mount Holyoke graduates who reunite and reminisce about their college years.

In 1988, after three more successful plays, “The Heidi Chronicles” was produced at Playwright’s Horizons. This story of one woman’s quest for fulfillment quickly moved to Broadway and became an American classic. “The Heidi Chronicles” earned many awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award. Impressively, she was able to follow “The Heidi Chronicles” with another Broadway hit, “The Sisters Rosensweig,” a 1992 play about three sisters and their very different struggles with identity.

Wasserstein’s also wrote the plays “Tender Offer,” “Isn’t it Romantic,” “The Man in a Case,” “An American Daughter,” “Old Money,” and “Third.” Her other work included the screenplay for “The Object of My Affection,” two books of essays, and “Pamela’s First Musical,” a children’s book that she adapted into a musical. In 1998 Wasserstein started Open Doors, a program to bring intelligent underprivileged students to New York. That same year, after attempts spanning over a decade, she gave birth to a daughter and achieved her dream of motherhood as a brilliant, resilient and witty single woman. Tragically Wasserstein died in 2006 due to lymphoma complications. The lights on Broadway were dimmed the next day in her honor.

Wendy Wasserstein was the first playwright to put modern women on the stage and gave them a voice. Her work was hailed as funny and accessible as well as being an honest investigation of a struggling driven generation of women. As people balancing careers, love lives and children, Wasserstein’s characters always have doubts and insecurity, but also great strength and insight. Her characters face dissatisfaction, uncertain identities, and societal pressure, with humor. They are always ready with punch lines and quips. Her plays are reflections of a world where people are self-aware individuals who find solidarity and overcome life’s difficulties without losing their ability to smile.

Further Reading:

Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Wasserstein
Jewish Women's Archive Biography: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/wasserstein-wendy
New York Times Obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/theater/31wasserstein.html
Playbill.com Obituary: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/96859
Michael Feingold Remembers her in The Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-24/theater/wendy-wasserstein/