Wasserstein Describes Her Life

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein spoke excitedly about her life, her craft and women's role in the arts to a crowd of more than 200 drama enthusiasts at the Agassiz Theater last night.

"In my works, I tend to write about my generation, things that have been bothering me, how the times in which one lives affect one's choices and what it is like to be a Jewish woman," Wasserstein said.

Wasserstein, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, had her first play, Uncommon Women and Others, produced in 1978, and has since written four other plays, among them The Heidi Chronicles, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. The Sisters Rosensweig, which enjoyed a three-year run on Broadway, earned five Tony Award nominations.

In her speech, she stressed the importance of not writing strictly about opposing issues.

"So much of the politics in theater is from the left attacking the right," she said.

Ironically, her newest play will take place in Washington and will follow the events surrounding a woman's cabinet nomination.

Yet she later told a hopeful playwright in the audience, "Never think you have to have a certain point of view to write plays."

Despite her advice not to focus only on political issues in writing, in speaking. Wasserstein voiced concerns about the problems facing women in art.

"It seems as though [in a bookstore], there is a section for drama, and for women's drama," she said. "As long as that is true, we have a ways to go."

Wasserstein also said she was concerned about the potential lack of future funding for the National Endowment of the Arts, an organization for which she has done some work.

"I think the state of playwriting today is very good," she said. "But the problem with being an artist in America is that you don't know what is going to happen from year to year."

Rachel Tiven '97 of the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club moderated the first 45 minutes of the discussion. Tiven asked Wasserstein about her New York childhood, her development as a writer and her plans and views of the future.

"How lucky I am to be from this family because it has provided me with endless material," Wasserstein said. She also said frequent trips to Broadway from her Brooklyn home had inspired her.

When Tiven asked if there was an overarching message Jewish women can learn from her body of work, Wasserstein quipped, "Aerobics--it's never too late to start."

Wasserstein also said she prefers to adapt her plays for public television rather than film because she can retain creative control over her works even though she makes less money. Joking about her salary from television, she said, "I consider myself the Queen of the Four-Figure Deal."

For the last 45 minutes, members of the audience asked Wasserstein questions pertaining predominantly to playwriting.

"There is no one way to write a play," she said, while stressing the importance of seeing other people's plays and "being around other people doing what you want to do."

Wasserstein said she is currently working on a possible film script and an adaptation of The Sisters Rosensweig for the BBC. But she assured the audience she is not planning to write a sequel to The Heidi Chronicles.

The event was co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel and the Office for the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe.

Wasserstein's speech was part of the "Learning from Performers" series, which is sponsored by the Office for the Arts. Christopher Durang '71 and Terrence McNally will come to Harvard next month as part of the series.