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 regarding contemporary women's roles that informs the characterizations of each play's respective protagonists.

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 the collective experience of Jewish-Americans.

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 gendered differences of her critical reception and popular appeal.

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 dislikes have often coincided with those of Broadway audiences, Kerr strongly believes that good theater is popular theater. In the following review, Kerr lauds the revised version of Isn't It Romantic for its improved characterizations.

In the following review, Cooper evaluates Pamela's First Musical, observing that children's-book publishers often sacrifice literary quality for corporate profits.

In the following negative review, Kanfer examines the characters and plot of An American Daughter, pronouncing the play's central conceit as “false.”

In the following article, Gold profiles Wasserstein's life and career up to the production of Isn't It Romantic.

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 the comic effect of the interplay between the libretto and the musical score.

In the following review, Black offers praise for Bachelor Girls.

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 emotional hothouse within whose clammy confines they and their work would seem to have become terminally trapped…. [The] arrival of Wendy Wasserstein's "Isn't It Romantic" at Playwrights Horizons convinces me that last month's diagnosis was too vague and general. True, the American theater seems more preoccupied t...

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.

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 characterizations are weak and its plot lacks real dramatic conflict, but adds that the acting in Isn't It Romantic is excellent.

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 Cheryl Crawford, he founded the Innovative Group Theater, which served as an arena for the works of new playwrights and as an experimental workshop for actors. Strasberg and Clurman introduced the Stanislavsky method of acting—most commonly referred to as "Method" acting—to the Ame...

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, 1964–1974 (1976). Here, he contends that Uncommon Women and Others is well-written and enjoyable but adds that the subject matter of the play is too familiar to be especially interesting.

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 1950– © Thomas Victor 1984

In the following review, Kirschner praises the humor and satire that informs the principal themes of Bachelor Girls.

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 keep even the most skeptical reader interested.

[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 probably issues from … [a childhood apprenticeship] in front of the TV screen. This gives Isn't It Romantic … a compelling stop-and-go movement. Unfortunately,… the prevailing emotional atmosphere is one of injured self-regard and subliminally rationalized prejudice…. Isn't It Romantic, which is set in New ...

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 essays.

[Wendy Wasserstein] is among the funniest and most inventive writers around, but the first version of "Isn't It Romantic" seemed to me "as out of shape and listless as its beguiling heroine." That has now changed. Miss Wasserstein has revised her script, and she and her director, Gerald Gutierrez, have given the play momentum and a sense of purpose; there is nothing listless here…. My first feeling was one of dismay that the play had lost its innocence, but eventual...

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's ascent to adulthood. When the play was first presented two years ago … it overflowed with amusing lines about such protean subjects as indulgent parents, rebellious offspring and food as a substitute for love. With careful rewriting, the playwright has turned the tables on her own play…. [It] is now a nouvelle cuisine c...

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 the beginning, the child … is waiting alone, filling in time by improvising a dance to "Carolina in the Morning." She is furious, but we don't realize how furious until the father appears with some lame excuse about being detained at the office. Their conversation is stiff to begin with (and very funny, too), but ...

In the following, Solomon offers praise for Bachelor Girls.