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Wendy Wasserstein

WENDY WASSERSTEIN

  (1950 - 2006)
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    ICM Partners  

Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950  January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 for her play the Heidi Chronicles.
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below is a list of Wendy Wasserstein's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         American Daughter, An         Any Woman Can't         Bette And Me         Boy Meets Girl         Dessert With Durang         Happy Birthday, Montpelier Pizz-zazz         Heidi Chronicles, The         Isn't It Romantic         Man in a Case, The         Medea         Miami         Montpelier Pa-Zazz         Sisters Rosensweig, The         Smart Woman/Brilliant Choices         T(ext) Shirt Project, The         Tender Offer         Third         To T Or Not To T         Uncommon Women and Others         Waiting For Philip Glass         Wecome To My Rash         When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth         Workout

American Daughter, An

Synopsis:
Set in Washington, D.C., An American Daughter focuses on Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes, a health care expert and forty-something daughter of a long-time Senator. When the President nominates Lyssa to a Cabinet post, an indiscretion from her past is discovered. the media turns it into a scandal which imperils her confirmation and divides her family and friends. Lyssa is forced to make a decision: continue to pursue the post and face an ugly Senate hearing; or decline the nomination, becoming a sacrificial lamb for the President. Partisan politics in the American nation's capital, however, are nothing compared to the personal politics in Lyssa's living room, where complicated relationships unravel with her father, husband, and her best girl-friend - not to mention the awkward encounters she has with an exuberant, neo-feminist author, and a relentless TV journalist.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Cort Theatre, New York    13 Apr 1997

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
American Theatre Magazine, NY - September, 1997    -

Music:
-

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  8            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Any Woman Can't

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut    1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Bette And Me

Synopsis:
the author and the legendary Bette Midler get their hair done, try on make-up, and row a boat on the Hudson River. they finally end up at Radio City Music Hall, where Wendy rises from the orchestra pit on a half-shell with a blonde wig and six-foot eyelashes.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Boy Meets Girl

Synopsis:
brings together Dan and Molly, two successful, thirty-something New Yorkers afraid of making a commitment. With the help of their psychiatrists, they finally find the courage to tie the knot under the altar before Her Majesty, the Queen

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Dessert With Durang

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
by Christopher Durang/Wendy Wasserstein

1st Produced:
the Payan Theatre, NY    2006

Organisations:
TimeSpace Theatre Company

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Happy Birthday, Montpelier Pizz-zazz

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut    1974

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Heidi Chronicles, The

Synopsis:
Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes, the play traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. Gradually distancing herself from her friends, she watches them move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years through militant feminism and, eventually, back to the materialism that they had sought to reject in the first place. Heidi's own path to maturity involves an affair with the glib, arrogant Scoop Rosenbaum, a womanizing lawyer/publisher who eventually marries for money and position; a deeper but even more troubling relationship with a charming, witty young pediatrician, Peter Patrone, who turns out to be gay; and increasingly disturbing contacts with the other women, now much changed, who were a part of her childhood and college years. Eventually Heidi comes to accept the fact that liberation can be achieved only if one is true to oneself, with goals that come out of need rather than circums

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1990   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Isn't It Romantic

Synopsis:
the play deals with the post-college careers (and dilEmmas) of two former classmates, a short, slightly plump would-be writer named Janie Blumberg, and her tall, thin gorgeous WASP friend, Harriet Cornwall. Both are struggling to escape from lingering parental domination and to establish their own lives and identities. In Janie's case this leads to an inconclusive involvement with a young Jewish doctor who calls her "Monkey"; while Harriet assails the world of big business and has an affair with her hard-driving (and married) boss. Told in a fast-moving series of inventive, alternately hilarious and touchingly revealing scenes, the play explores their parallel stories with uncommon wit and wisdom-resulting, ultimately, in a heightened awareness which, while not providing all the answers, goes a long way toward achieving the maturity and self-assuredness that both protagonists so desperately desire.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1981

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 1985   -

Music:
-

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If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Man in a Case, The

Man in a Case, The
-

Notes:
Original Playwright - Anton Chekhov

1st Produced:
Urbana, Illinois    1985

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Contained in: "Orchards " published by Knopf 1986   978-0394745350

Music:
-

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Genre:
Adaptation

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Medea

Synopsis:
MEDEA and her chorus of three women try to figure out if it's appropriate to kill your children just to punish your husband. Jason shows up, so does a messenger with news of Lady Teazle, and a Deus ex Machina comes down from the sky and tries to cheer everybody up.

Notes:
written with Christopher Durang

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Miami

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
music And lyrics by Bruce Sussman And Jack Feldman

1st Produced:
New York    1986

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Montpelier Pa-Zazz

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
musical

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  9            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Sisters Rosensweig, The

Synopsis:
Sara Goode, an enormously successful American woman working as the British representative of a major Hong Kong bank, is about to celebrate her fifty-fourth birthday, and she isn't exactly too happy about it. Firmly ensconced in her lovely London home, she leads a quiet, almost cold, expatriate life with her daughter, Tess. For the birthday celebration, her two sisters, Gorgeous Teitelbaum (Dr. Gorgeous, loving housewife and mother, of Newton, MA, who has her own call-in radio advice program and hopes to make the leap to TV), and Pfeni Rosensweig (peripatetic third-world travel writer, alas, unmarried), are expected to arrive at any moment. As if this weren't causing Sara enough stress, Mervyn Kant shows up at her door, and she doesn't even know the man, who, at first sight, is instantly smitten with her. Mervyn is a furrier, and a friend of Geoffrey's, the on again, off again, bi-sexual lover of Pfeni. After her sisters arrive for the celebration, Tess, and her boyfriend, Tom, turn up and advise her that they

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1992

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Samuel French, London, 1993   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Smart Woman/Brilliant Choices

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
in Urban Blight

1st Produced:
New York    1988

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Musical revue

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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T(ext) Shirt Project, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
with plays by David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Jane Martin, Naomi Wallace, Wendy Wasserstein, And Mac Wellman.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Humana Festival 1999: the Complete Plays, ed Michael Bigelow Dixon & Amy Wegener, Smith & Kraus, 1999   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tender Offer

Synopsis:
focuses on a distant Father and his nine-year-old daughter. When he arrives late to pick her up from dance class, they discuss their lack of communication and why he missed her dance recital.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New York    1983

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Third

Synopsis:
a supremely confident and dogmatic college literature professor. Laurie Jameson, an old friend of writer Flora, holds forth in a private liberal Arts college. Her take on King Lear is that the real story is the "girlification" of Cordelia, rather than Lear's tragedy. Cordelia, she states, is but a "narcissistic simp," while the "real heroes" of the story are the scheming daughters Goneril and Regan. Thus, she puts a proto-feminist stamp on the story while simultaneously indicting most contemporary scholars as male chauvinists. It's an argument that Professor Jameson makes rationally, even if her strident certainty is inadvertently comical. When a male student -- a jock and a potential conservative on a campus held in an iron grip of political and cultural correctness -- offers a different interpretation of the Shakespeare opus, Jameson accuses him of plagiarizing. She's unable to accept that a student she has pigeonholed as a non-intellectual because of his socio-economic background, athletic ability, and what she perceives as his politics could have formulated such a cogent and original set of arguments. Jameson, meanwhile, is dealing with hot flashes and fantasizes about removing her shirt, going as far as telling Third that she'd rather call him "Woody" and muttering in an aside that the word has a special attraction for her at the moment. the two clash over culture and politics until it becomes apparent that Jameson may be suffocating in an intellectual straitjacket of her own making, while the supposedly anti-intellectual jock is really the one with the open mind. As they deconstruct Shakespeare's work, they also deconstruct current political stereotypes, and Wasserstein challenges ideas that may be held dear by some of her most fervent fans. A subplot involving Jameson's rebellious, college-age daughter Emily also puts a few cracks in the professor's view of herself and her world, leading her to make a reality check; thus, the two plays complement each other. Rash concerns an uncertain woman who finds a new lease on life and faces the future with renewed confidence; Third reverses that construct. In essence, Wasserstein presents two very different women who make a similar journey of discovery but end up going in opposite directions.
DC Metro

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Theater J, Washington DC    2005

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2008   978-0822222750

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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To T Or Not To T

Synopsis:
Anyone can perform this play by an award-winning playwright simply by wearing the t-shirt upon which it is written

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
T(ext) Shirt Play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Uncommon Women and Others

Synopsis:
Comprised of a collage of interrelated scenes, the action begins with a reunion, six years after graduation, of five close friends and classmates at Mount Holyoke College. they compare notes on their activities since leaving school and then, in a series of flashbacks, we see them in their college days and learn of the events, some funny, some touching, some bitingly cynical, that helped to shape them. Each of the group is a distinct individual, and it is their varying reaction to the staid, sheltered and often anachronistic university environment (with its undercurrent of sometimes darker personal desires and conclusions) gives the play its special meaning for today's young women as they go forth into the changing and often disquieting world that awaits them after graduation.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut    1975

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Avon, New York, 1979   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Comedy Drama Comedy

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  9            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Waiting For Philip Glass

Synopsis:
a socialite throws a benefit at her posh East Hampton estate for the composer, Philip Glass. When the guest of honor fails to show up on time, the other guests are forced to mingle among themselves and examine their own lives

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
the Pit, London    1998

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Wecome To My Rash

Synopsis:
Flora Berman, a writer dealing with a variety of odd medical afflictions. With her frizzy hair unkempt and dressed in nondescript, shapeless clothing, she's in an early stage of leukemia; her upper lip is paralyzed, an eye provides her with kaleidoscope-style vision, and she has difficulty walking. then there's that odd rash, which had first manifested itself two decades previously and makes a return appearance here, diagnosed as a result of her body being allergic to its own hormonal cycle. Flora wryly refers to this news by describing the inflammation as "re-defined female self-loathing." As she undergoes a series of medical treatments and simultaneously writes a screenplay -- echoes of a recent chapter in Wasserstein's life -- Flora grudgingly forms a friendship with the eccentric doctor Kipling Varajan, a caricature of the modern physician-as-self-promoter who cheerfully swoops in on her between stops on an international schedule of high-profile medical conferences. He's a literate man, familiar with Flora's feminist writing, and their conversation ranges from the existential to the banal. Varajan also appears as a mystical rabbi in Flora's drug-induced hallucinations, dream-like sequences that include a parable concerning Cupid and his love interest, Psyche. the Greek mythology is presented in counterpoint to Flora's life as she faces her mortality, but the Gods are as unfocused as she is; the message gets lost in a torrent of pop culture references from Tovah Feldshuh to American Idol and snatches of Top-40 tunes from the 1960s. By play's end, Flora finds a new way of looking at her life.
DC Metro

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Theater J, Washington DC    2005

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
written with Christopher Durang

1st Produced:
New Haven, Connecticut    1975

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Workout

Synopsis:
an exercise instructor writes on a novel, opens a chain of departments stores, learns to unravel the double helix, and announces her husband's candidacy for governor

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY,    -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One Act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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