Wendy Wasserstein Biography

American playwright, born and raised in New York City, educated at the City College of New York, and Yale School of Drama. During the late 1970s and 1980s Wasserstein produced her plays in off- and off-off-Broadway venues. Her early work, in which she experimented with chronology, language, and form, showed her at her most innovative. Uncommon Women and Others (1975) is a compelling work about a reunion of five college friends; the scene moves between 1978, the year they meet, and the year they graduate, shifting through various conversations as they attempt to reconcile their present with their past. She came to prominence with The Heidi Chronicles (1989; Pulitzer Prize) which centres on an art historian and her imaginary visits to the many people who have influenced her life; the play examines Heidi's disenchantment with the progressive women's movement, charting its history through the 1970s and early 1980s. Her other works include When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (1975; with Christopher Durang), Isn't It Romantic (1981), Tender Offer (1983), and The Sisters Rosenweig (1993), which is reminiscent of Chekhov's The Three Sisters. Bachelor Girls (1990) is a collection of essays.