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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. These accolades for The Heidi Chronicles (first performed in 1988), a play that traces the confusions of a female art historian from the 1960s through the 1980s, suggest that Wasserstein has achieved her goal of writing drama that invites audiences to care about women's lives and dilemmas. Wasserstein frequently identifies herself as a member of the generation on the cusp of the women's movement; her work communicates and analyzes the confusion that has accompanied this enormous cultural transition.
Wendy Wasserstein was born on 18 October 1950 in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Morris W. Wasserstein, was a successful textile manufacturer, who invented velveteen. Her mother, Lola (whose maiden name was Schleifer), was a dancer. Wasserstein attended the exclusive Calhoun School on the upper East Side of Manhattan and studied dancing with June Taylor, whose troupe appeared regularly on The Jackie Gleason Show.
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