Wendy Wasserstein was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 18, 1950. She received an undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College, an M.A. at City College of New York and a M.F.A. at Yale University's School of Drama. A one-act play not only served as her M.F.A. thesis but became the basis for her successful full-length work, Uncommon Women and Others (1977). Her other plays include Isn't It Romantic, The Sisters Rosensweig, and Old Money. The Heidi Chronicles (1989) received numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony, the New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for most outstanding play by a woman, and the Hull-Warriner Award for the best play dealing with a controversial subject.
She also wrote the screenplay for the 1998 film The Object of My Affection, the children's book Pamela's First Musical, a spoof of self-help literature entitled Sloth, a novel entitled Elements of Style, and two collections of personal essays entitled Bachelor Girls and Shiksa Goddess. She died of lymphoma on January 30, 2006 at the age of 55.
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