Wasserstein, Wendy

Wendy Wasserstein, a prizewinning feminist playwright and author, was born October 18, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York, to Polish immigrant parents Morris W. Wasserstein, a textile manufacturer, and Lola (Schleifer), a dancer. Wasserstein, the youngest of five siblings (Sandra Meyer, Abner, Georgette Levis, and Bruce) attended the Calhoun School in New York (1963-1967) and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History from Mount Holyoke College in 1971. After studying writing at City College of New York, she earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1976 from Yale School of Drama. Wendy wrote and published more than 60 plays and screenplays, numerous articles, essays and speeches, and five books during her thirty-year career as an author and playwright. She both seriously and humorously addressed a range of topics including women and feminism, the theater, New York City, romance, and politics, in plays that include: "Any Woman Can’t" (1973), "Uncommon Women and Others" (1977), "Isn't It Romantic" (1983), "The Heidi Chronicles" (1988), "The Sisters Rosensweig" (1993), "An American Daughter" (1997), "Old Money" (2000), and "Third" (2005). She won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for The Heidi Chronicles in 1989. Many of her plays feature strong, complex female characters. As part of the New York theater scene, she collaborated with many notable artists including Yale classmate and playwright Christopher Durang and Playwrights Horizons and Lincoln Theater Center artistic director Andre Bishop.

Wendy was awarded a number of prizes and awards for her work as a playwright, including:

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