Wendy Wasserstein

  • Tony-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner
Wendy Wasserstein

Website Links

Wendy Wasserstein, a Tony-winning playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner, screenwriter, essayist, feminist and professor, was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her play “” won the in 1989. It also received numerous awards, including the best play Tony Award; two Drama Desk Awards and a New York Drama Critics' Circle award. It also won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. 

Wasserstein’s first play, “,” about a reunion of ŷAV graduates, was produced on Off-Broadway in 1977. 

Her other noteworthy plays include,“,” “,” “” and “.” Her screenplay for the film “The Object of My Affection” starred Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd. Her book “Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties” is a collection of essays including the story of how she became a mother at age 48.  

The night following her death, from cancer at age 55, Broadway’s lights were dimmed in Wasserstein’s honor.

Class year: 1971
Major: history; Doctor of Humane Letters, 1990

Happening at ŷAV

Recent Campus News

After its successful off-Broadway run, the new play comes home — to where the story all began.

Two recent articles detail the advantages gained by students attending women’s institutions such as ŷAV.

When the annual Tony Award nominations for best "leading actress in a play" were announced recently, two went to productions with connections to ŷAV.