In 1989 Wendy Wasserstein became the first woman playwright to win a Tony; that same year she also collected the Pulitzer Prize and the award for best new play from New York Drama Critics Circle. Thes...
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Critical Essay by Elliott Sirkin
[Isn't It Romantic presents] a series of hard-driving skits, most of which conclude with some kind of punch line or shock—a new dramatic shape that proba...
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Critical Essay by Richard Eder
Wendy Wasserstein has satirical instincts and an eye and ear for the absurd, but she shows signs of harnessing these talents to a harder discipline.
Wendy Wasserstein 19...
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Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
Wendy Wasserstein's "Tender Offer" is about a father who is so late picking up his little daughter at dancing school that he misses her recital. At ...
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Critical Essay by Mel Gussow
In her new, improved version of "Isn't It Romantic," Wendy Wasserstein has added a sweet humanity to her comic cautionary tale about a young woman�...
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Critical Essay by Edith Oliver
[Wendy Wasserstein] is among the funniest and most inventive writers around, but the first version of "Isn't It Romantic" seemed to me "as ou...
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Critical Essay by Benedict Nightingale
A few weeks ago I was mildly deploring American dramatists' apparent inability to pull open the shutters and look out into the big world beyond the emotio...
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In the following review, Black offers praise for Bachelor Girls.
"I think one of the reasons I took up writing is my need to make order out of disorder … that and this problem I have of ...
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This collection of essays Bachelor Girls by Tony Award-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein includes enjoyable, funny reading as well as satirical social commentary that is short and gossipy enough to...
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A distinguished American drama and film critic, Simon is the author of Uneasy Stages: A Chronicle of the New York Theatre, 1963–1973 (1976) and Singularities: Essays on the Theatre, 1964–...
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In the following, Solomon offers praise for Bachelor Girls.
In [the comic collection of essays entitled Bachelor Girls,] originally published in New York Woman, the author of The Heidi Chronicles refl...
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Highly regarded as a director, author, and longtime drama critic for The Nation, Clurman was an important contributor to the development of the modern American theater. In 1931, with Lee Strasberg and...
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Munk is an American editor and critic. Below, she likens Wasserstein's revised version of Isn't It Romantic to popular television drama, suggesting that the play's characterizatio...
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In the following article, Gold profiles Wasserstein's life and career up to the production of Isn't It Romantic.
One Wasserstein arranges mergers and acquisitions for First Boston. Anoth...
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Kerr is an American playwright, director, and highly respected drama critic for the New York Times who was awarded the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Criticism. A conservative critic whose likes and di...
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In the following interview, originally conducted in August 1987, Wasserstein discusses the impetus behind her career, the inspirations for her comedy, the importance of humor in her dramas, and the ge...
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In the following essay, Donahue details the circumstances surrounding the publication of Pamela's First Musical, summarizing the book's storyline and Wasserstein's expectations.
M...
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In the following review, Cooper evaluates Pamela's First Musical, observing that children's-book publishers often sacrifice literary quality for corporate profits.
Anyone can write a chi...
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In the following negative review, Kanfer examines the characters and plot of An American Daughter, pronouncing the play's central conceit as “false.”
Given the headlines, it becom...
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In the following essay, Whitfield investigates the thematic significance of Jewish identity in Wasserstein's major plays, comparing the verisimilitude of their autobiographical dimension with t...
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In the following essay, Balakian traces the evolution of Wasserstein's feminist dramaturgy from Uncommon Women and Others through An American Daughter, highlighting the cultural confusion regar...
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In the following review, Shengold comments on the humor of The Festival of Regrets—which was first performed as part of a production of three one-act operas titled Central Park—noting th...
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In the following review, the critic praises the “pedestrian” themes of Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties but finds the collection repetitive and stale except for the last two es...
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In the following review, Kirschner praises the humor and satire that informs the principal themes of Bachelor Girls.
This collection of essays by Tony Award-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein [Bache...
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Wendy Wasserstein
