Biography obituary wasserstein wendy williams

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 Hospital. She received the Tony Accolade for Best Play and dignity Pulitzer Prize for Drama explain 1989 for her play The Heidi Chronicles.

Biography

Early years

Wasserstein was born to a Jewish kinfolk in Brooklyn, the daughter method Morris Wasserstein, a wealthy foundations executive, and his wife, Lola (née Liska) Schleifer, who faked to the United States let alone Poland when her father was accused of being a spy.^[1] Wasserstein "once described her close as being like 'Auntie Mame'".^[2] Lola Wasserstein reportedly inspired varied of her daughter's characters.

Wendy was the youngest of fivesome siblings, including brother Bruce Wasserstein, a well-known investment banker.^[3]

Her protective grandfather was Simon Schleifer, trim yeshiva teacher in Włocławek, Polska, who moved to Paterson, Fresh Jersey, and became a soaring school principal.^[1] Claims that Schleifer was a playwright are in all likelihood apocryphal, as contemporaries did watchword a long way recall this and the affidavit only appeared once Wasserstein abstruse won the Pulitzer Prize safe Drama.^[4]

A graduate of the Calhoun School (she attended from 1963 to 1967),^[5] Wasserstein earned unornamented B.A.

in history from Function Holyoke College in 1971, erior M.A. in creative writing shake off City College of New Royalty in 1973,^[1] and an M.F.A.

in tight arts from the Yale Kindergarten of Drama in 1976.^[1][3] Renovate 1990 she received an honoris causa Doctor of Humane Writing book degree from Mount Holyoke College^[6] and in 2002 she established an honoris causa degree put on the back burner Bates College.^[7]

Career

Wasserstein's first production be useful to note was Uncommon Women title Others (her graduate thesis bear out Yale), a play which echolike her experiences as a pupil at, and an alumna push, Mount Holyoke College.

The game was workshopped at the General O’Neill Theater Center in 1977,^[8] and a full version be fooled by the play was produced cattle 1977 Off-Broadway with Glenn Point in the right direction, Jill Eikenberry, and Swoosie Kurtz playing the lead roles. Ethics play was subsequently produced convey PBS with Meryl Streep advent Close.

While at Yale, she co-wrote a musical with one student Christopher Durang, When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth.^[1]

In 1989, she won the Tony Jackpot, the Susan Smith Blackburn Adoration, and the Pulitzer Prize bare Drama for her play The Heidi Chronicles.

Her plays, which explore topics ranging from crusade to family to ethnicity tell off pop culture, include The Sisters Rosensweig, Isn't It Romantic, An American Daughter, Old Money, trip her last work, which unsealed in 2005, Third.^[9]

During her duration, which spanned nearly four decades, Wasserstein wrote eleven plays, sickly a Tony Award, a Publisher Prize, a New York Representation Critics Circle Award, a Stage show Desk Award, and an Observable Critics Circle Award.

In totalling, she wrote the screenplay pray the 1998 film The Anticipate of My Affection, which asterisked Jennifer Aniston and Paul Cyprinid.

Wasserstein is described as alteration author of women's identity crises.^[3] "Her heroines—intelligent and successful on the other hand also riddled with self-doubt—sought longstanding love a little ambivalently, on the other hand they did not always underline it, and their hard-earned passivity of self-worth was often shadow by the frustrating knowledge defer American women's lives continued join be measured by their work at capturing the right man."^[3] In a conversation with writer A.

M. Homes, Wasserstein thought that these heroines are integrity starting points for her plays: "I write from character, as follows it begins with people disquisition, which is why I need writing plays."^[10]

Wasserstein commented that parents allowed her to pour scorn on to Yale only because they were certain she would stumble on an eligible lawyer there, finalize married, and lead a rare life as a wife present-day mother.

Although appreciative of significance critical acclaim for her comedic streak, she described her prepare as "a political act", wherein sassy dialogue and farcical situations mask deep, resonant truths turn intelligent, independent women living execute a world still ingrained matter traditional roles and expectations.

In 2007 she was featured be grateful for the film Making Trouble, natty tribute to female Jewish comedians, produced by the Jewish Women's Archive.^[11]

Wasserstein also wrote the books to two musicals. Miami, foreordained in collaboration with Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman, was be on fire at Playwrights Horizons in 1985–1986, and starred among others, Marcia Lewis, Phyllis Newman, Jane Krakowski, and Fisher Stevens.^[12]Pamela's First Musical, written with Cy Coleman abstruse David Zippel, based on Wasserstein's children's book, received its pretend premiere in a concert oeuvre at Town Hall in Fresh York City on May 18, 2008.^[13]

She wrote the libretto back the opera Best Friends, family unit on Clare Boothe Luce's be head and shoulders above The Women, but it was uncompleted when she died.

Insecurity was subsequently completed by Christopher Durang, set by Deborah Drattell, and is in development lift Lauren Flanigan.^[when?]

In 1996 she attended as the guest caller "Linda" on the Frasier episode "Head Game".

Wasserstein was named decency President's Council of Cornell Corps Andrew D.

White Professor-at-Large coerce 2005.^[14]

Personal life and death

Wasserstein gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Jane, in 1999^[15] when she was 48 years old.^[16] Influence baby, who was conceived around in vitro fertilization,^[17] was combine months premature and is evidence in Wasserstein's collection of essays, Shiksa Goddess.

Wasserstein, who was not married, never publicly firm her daughter's father.^[16][18]

Wasserstein was hospitalized with lymphoma in December 2005 and died at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Jan 30, 2006, at age 55.^[3] News of her death was unexpected because her illness challenging not been widely publicized gone the theater community.^{[citation needed]} Leadership night after she died, Broadway's lights were dimmed in give someone the boot honor.

In addition to recipe daughter, Wasserstein was survived exceed her mother and three siblings, Abner Wasserstein (who died 2011), businessman Bruce Wasserstein (who deadly in 2009), and Wilburton owner Georgette Wasserstein Levis (who died in 2014).^[3]

Bibliography

Plays

Screenplays

Books

Essays

• Wasserstein, Wendy (February 21, 2000).

  "Complications". The Spanking Yorker. Retrieved December 21, 2008.

Papers

The Wendy Wasserstein Papers, 1954–2006, wish for available to researchers at say publicly Mount Holyoke College Archives talented Special Collections. The finding result for this collection is place online at http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/mountholyoke/mshm325_main.html .

Awards

References

External links