Monday, January 30, 2006

RIP Wendy Wasserstein



She died today of lymphoma:

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein died today after a battle with lymphoma. She was 55 and she leaves behind a body of work that includes hits such as "The Heidi Chronicles" (1988) and "The Sisters Rosensweig" (1993) and a little daughter named Lucy Jane.

Wasserstein was well liked on stage and off, quick with a smile and a quip in person and always popular at the box office. Indeed, her plays were pack 'em in crowdpleasers and critics sometimes dismissed her wry Manhattaneque comedies as the stuff of a female Neil Simon but that commentary abjectly misses the significance of her work. Before Wasserstein, there was no room for smart, funny, independent women on Broadway, women who stood on their own terms, not as foils for male characters who really ran the show. The playwright made a place for women on Broadway to make their own choices about love, life, parenthood and feminism.