WASSERSTEIN, WENDY

WASSERSTEIN, WENDY (1950–2006), prize-winning U.S. playwright and the first woman to receive the Tony Award for Best Play. Wasserstein, the youngest of four children of Lola (Schleifer) and Morris Wasserstein, a prosperous textile manufacturer, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Manhattan. She received a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in 1971 and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama in 1975. Her plays, which have strong feminist themes tempered with humor and compassion, include Uncommon Women and Others (1975); Tender Offer (1983); Isn't It Romantic (1983); and The Heidi Chronicles (1989), which won both a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. While many of her plays had distinctively Jewish elements, The Sisters Rosenzweig (1992) explicitly portrays the different ways three sisters come to terms with their Jewish heritage. Other plays include An American Daughter (1997), Old Money (2000), and Third (2005). Wasserstein was also a prolific writer in other genres, including television and film. Collections of her essays include Bachelor Girls (1991) and Shiksa Goddess (2001). She was the author of Sloth (2005), part of a series on the seven deadly sins published by Oxford University Press. Wasserstein died of cancer in New York City, leaving behind a daughter born in 1999. Her papers are collected at the Mount Holyoke Archives, South Hadley, Massachusetts. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Balakian, The Dramatic World of Wendy Wasserstein (1998); idem, "Wasserstein, Wendy," in: P.E. Hyman and D.D. Moore (eds.), Jewish Women in America, vol. 2 (1997), 1456–59. (Judith R. Baskin (2nd ed.)