SOURCE: Wasserstein, Wendy, and The Playwright's Art. “Wendy Wasserstein.” In The Playwright's Art: Conversations with Contemporary American Dramatists, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, pp. 257-76. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

In the following interview, originally conducted on October 9, 1991, Wasserstein discusses her early career and the implications of her success, aspects of her writing process, the influence and role of women in contemporary theatre, and the critical and popular reception of her plays, particularly The Heidi Chronicles, both in the United States and abroad.

Wendy Wasserstein was born in 1950 in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College and the Yale School of Drama, she is the author of Any Woman Can't (1973), Happy Birthday, Montpelier Pizz-zazz (1974), When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (with Christopher Durang; 1975), Uncommon Women and Others (1977), Isn't It Romantic (1981), Tender Offer (1983), The Man in a Case (adapted from a Chekhov story; 1986), Miami (1986), The...