SOURCE: Donahue, Richard. “Opening Night.” Publishers Weekly 243, no. 17 (22 April 1996): 31.

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.

Meryl Streep proclaims it “a hit,” Carol Channing says it's “funny and adorable,” and it made Glenn Close “laugh out loud.” The newest smash from Broadway or Hollywood, perhaps? Not exactly. It's Pamela's First Musical, a picture book in which a girl goes to the theater for the first time and with which a Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist makes her debut in the world of children's literature.

The text for this May release from Hyperion is the work of Wendy Wasserstein, author of such acclaimed Broadway fare as The Sisters Rosensweig (which won the 1993 Outer Critics Circle Award) and The Heidi Chronicles—winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Wasserstein's appropriately histrionic picture book story is matched scene...