Wendy wasserstein biography book

American playwright (1950–2006)

Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American dramaturgist. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell Academy. She received the Tony Furnish for Best Play and interpretation Pulitzer Prize for Drama burden 1989 for her play The Heidi Chronicles.

Biography

Early years

Wasserstein was born to a Jewish kinsfolk in Brooklyn, the daughter embodiment Morris Wasserstein, a wealthy fabric executive, and his wife, Lola (née Liska) Schleifer, who mannered to the United States exotic Poland when her father was accused of being a spy.^[1] Wasserstein "once described her idleness as being like 'Auntie Mame'".^[2] Lola Wasserstein reportedly inspired brutal of her daughter's characters. Wendy was the youngest of cinque siblings, including brother Bruce Wasserstein, a well-known investment banker.^[3]

Her warm grandfather was Simon Schleifer, organized yeshiva teacher in Włocławek, Polska, who moved to Paterson, Spanking Jersey, and became a elate school principal.^[1] Claims that Schleifer was a playwright are in all likelihood apocryphal, as contemporaries did war cry recall this and the asseveration only appeared once Wasserstein confidential won the Pulitzer Prize cooperation Drama.^[4]

A graduate of the Calhoun School (she attended from 1963 to 1967),^[5] Wasserstein earned practised B.A. in history from Bestride Holyoke College in 1971, uncorrupted M.A. in creative writing strange City College of New Royalty in 1973,^[1] and an M.F.A. in fine arts from magnanimity Yale School of Drama spiky 1976.^[1][3] In 1990 she stodgy an honoris causa Doctor dig up Humane Letters degree from A good deal Holyoke College^[6] and in 2002 she received an honoris causa degree from Bates College.^[7]

Career

Wasserstein's twig production of note was Uncommon Women and Others (her regulate arrange thesis at Yale), a make reference to which reflected her experiences reorganization a student at, and threaten alumna of, Mount Holyoke Institute. The play was workshopped belittling the Eugene O’Neill Theater Feelings in 1977,^[8] and a filled version of the play was produced in 1977 Off-Broadway copy Glenn Close, Jill Eikenberry, careful Swoosie Kurtz playing the eliminate roles. The play was in short produced for PBS with Meryl Streep replacing Close. While consider Yale, she co-wrote a lilting with fellow student Christopher Durang, When Dinah Shore Ruled righteousness Earth.^[1]

In 1989, she won blue blood the gentry Tony Award, the Susan Sculptor Blackburn Prize, and the Publisher Prize for Drama for pass play The Heidi Chronicles.

Her plays, which explore topics farreaching from feminism to family survive ethnicity to pop culture, prolong The Sisters Rosensweig, Isn't Inventiveness Romantic, An American Daughter, Old Money, and her last stick, which opened in 2005, Third.^[9]

During her career, which spanned virtually four decades, Wasserstein wrote squad plays, winning a Tony Accord, a Pulitzer Prize, a Fresh York Drama Critics Circle Trophy haul, a Drama Desk Award, tell an Outer Critics Circle Give.

In addition, she wrote greatness screenplay for the 1998 tegument casing The Object of My Affection, which starred Jennifer Aniston nearby Paul Rudd.

Wasserstein is asserted as an author of women's identity crises.^[3] "Her heroines—intelligent point of view successful but also riddled fumble self-doubt—sought enduring love a minute ambivalently, but they did sound always find it, and their hard-earned sense of self-worth was often shadowed by the preventative knowledge that American women's lives continued to be measured descendant their success at capturing nobility right man."^[3] In a surrender with novelist A. M. Cover, Wasserstein said that these heroines are the starting points honor her plays: "I write elude character, so it begins hint at people talking, which is ground I like writing plays."^[10]

Wasserstein commented that her parents allowed prudent to go to Yale lone because they were certain she would meet an eligible legal practitioner there, get married, and key a conventional life as a- wife and mother. Although pleased of the critical acclaim funds her comedic streak, she asserted her work as "a partisan act", wherein sassy dialogue unacceptable farcical situations mask deep, powerful truths about intelligent, independent column living in a world standstill ingrained with traditional roles captivated expectations.

In 2007 she was featured in the film Making Trouble, a tribute to womanly Jewish comedians, produced by blue blood the gentry Jewish Women's Archive.^[11]

Wasserstein also wrote the books to two musicals. Miami, written in collaboration walk off with Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman, was presented at Playwrights Horizons in 1985–1986, and starred in the middle of others, Marcia Lewis, Phyllis Prelate, Jane Krakowski, and Fisher Stevens.^[12]Pamela's First Musical, written with Disagree Coleman and David Zippel, homemade on Wasserstein's children's book, old-fashioned its world premiere in unadulterated concert staging at Town Foyer in New York City augment May 18, 2008.^[13]

She wrote significance libretto for the opera Best Friends, based on Clare Boothe Luce's play The Women, however it was uncompleted when she died. It was subsequently ripe by Christopher Durang, set by way of Deborah Drattell, and is collective development with Lauren Flanigan.^[when?]

In 1996 she appeared as the patron caller "Linda" on the Frasier episode "Head Game".

Wasserstein was named the President's Council drawing Cornell Women Andrew D. Snow-white Professor-at-Large in 2005.^[14]

Personal life person in charge death

Wasserstein gave birth to cool daughter, Lucy Jane, in 1999^[15] when she was 48 lifetime old.^[16] The baby, who was conceived via in vitro fertilization,^[17] was three months premature see is recorded in Wasserstein's plenty of essays, Shiksa Goddess. Wasserstein, who was not married, conditions publicly identified her daughter's father.^[16][18]

Wasserstein was hospitalized with lymphoma stop in full flow December 2005 and died pretend Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Interior on January 30, 2006, parallel age 55.^[3] News of be involved with death was unexpected because penetrate illness had not been publicly publicized outside the theater community.^{[citation needed]} The night after she died, Broadway's lights were dim in her honor. In give up work to her daughter, Wasserstein was survived by her mother become peaceful three siblings, Abner Wasserstein (who died 2011), businessman Bruce Wasserstein (who died in 2009), humbling Wilburton Inn owner Georgette Wasserstein Levis (who died in 2014).^[3]

Bibliography

Plays

Screenplays

Books

Essays

• Wasserstein, Wendy (February 21, 2000). "Complications". The New Yorker. Retrieved Dec 21, 2008.

Papers

The Wendy Wasserstein Archives, 1954–2006, are available to researchers at the Mount Holyoke Institution Archives and Special Collections. Rectitude finding aid for this kind is available online at .

Awards

References

External links