Spring 2006 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra

Web Extra: Memorials to Wendy Wasserstein ’71

Below are the many tributes we received following the death of Wendy Wasserstein, accompanied by a few of her comments about Mount Holyoke. There is also a selection of links where you can read more about her life, and read some of the tributes published in the national media following her death.

Wendy in 2000 on her home turf, New York City

The Alumnae Association joins with the Mount Holyoke College community worldwide in expressing our deep sorrow over the loss of Wendy Wasserstein ’71, who died on January 30, 2006, in New York City. Wasserstein, a Tony-, Obie-, and Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright and one of the College’s most prominent alumnae, was a dedicated supporter of Mount Holyoke who embodied the mission of the College in her work and life. Her plays, which include Uncommon Women and Others, The Heidi Chronicles, An American Daughter, and The Sisters Rosensweig, articulated a complex, witty vision of contemporary women and their efforts to negotiate the world of careers, relationships, family, and society. Wasserstein also wrote critically praised essays about her childhood and family, her career as a female playwright, and her daughter, Lucy Jane, born in 1999 when Wasserstein was forty-eight.

In 1985, the Alumnae Association awarded Wasserstein with its highest honor, the Mary Lyon Award. W. Rochelle Calhoun, executive director of the Alumnae Association, said, “The Alumnae Association was pleased to recognize the work of one of the brightest and most original minds of her generation, and we mourn her untimely passing.”

In 1990, Wendy gave the commencement address at Mount Holyoke, and received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the College.

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› Memories of Wendy from the MHC Community
› Wendy’s Comments about MHC
› Wendy Wasserstein Information on Other Web Sites

Memories of Wendy from the MHC Community

~Here’s a short vignette from what I understand was Wendy’s last visit to Mount Holyoke in 2001. Wendy was always supportive of the idea of film at Mount Holyoke, thinking that we could do more to publicize the specialness of this place by emphasizing our attempt to educate women about film. We had discussed the possibility of having a screening of The Object of My Affection (1998), the film for which Wendy had written a screenplay and that marked her entry into Hollywood. Wendy was excited about the prospect of such an event, so I arranged for this to happen. She and I would discuss the film from our different perspectives and then we all would watch the film. When we walked into Hooker Auditorium, Wendy stopped. “My God,” she said, “I took biology here.” When it was her turn to speak, she told the crowd about that: “All I can think of in this room is that this is the place where I got a D-minus in zoology. This is the place where I identified the heart as the liver. The thought that I am speaking here is really cuckoo.” She then told the students that they should take heart from this, for their lives would also not be determined by the grades they got in college. That, in a nutshell, is Wendy: funny, self-deprecating, and truly a wonderful person, never missing an opportunity to encourage others. I miss her very much.—Tom Wartenberg, MHC professor of philosophy

~I barely knew her but the favorite story I tell people is: A few of us (I recall Esther Troper Simpser ’71 was in the group) were walking near the CI a few weeks before senior grades were due in May 1971 and ran into Wendy—and we engaged in conversation with her. She mentioned she had an 8 credit independent study original story/play due and had barely started it. I, who could put off things with the best of them, was amazed. As she was called up for her diploma at graduation, I thought “I guess she can write.” Little did I know...—Judy Katzenelson Brownstein ’71

~When “The Heidi Chronicles” came to the Kennedy Center in Washington, I went to the MHC Alumnae Club’s benefit performance that was followed by a reception with Wendy Wasserstein. Although I graduated five years after Wendy, I felt a strong connection to her through her plays and wanted to meet her in person.

When we had a chance to talk, Wendy commented on the McNally part of my name tag and asked if I was any relation to her good friend and fellow playwright Terrence McNally. When I said no, she told me how wonderful his work was and urged me to see his plays. I felt so flattered that someone as important in the theatre world as Wendy would personally recommend plays to me that I vowed to take her advice.

Knowing little about his work other than Wendy’s recommendation, I bought tickets to McNally’s “The Lisbon Traviatta” when it came to the Studio Theatre. I ended up taking a very conservative friend who was, if anything, more naive about McNally’s plays than I. Picture two middle aged, carpool-driving, Talbot’s-wearing clueless moms stretching their comfort zones to accommodate the gay subject matter and male nudity of what turned out to be a very enlightening play.

I thank Wendy for not only chronicling my life, but for also stretching it a little around the edges.—Jo-Ann McNally Muir ’76

~When I was a senior at MHC, the history department hosted a career day of sorts; I think it was called “What can you do with a history major?” One of the guests—I can’t remember who else came—was Wendy Wasserstein. Who knew she’d studied history? (I suppose everyone assumes great writers were all English majors.) We sat in one of the Rocky living rooms and chatted the afternoon away. Wendy was friendly and encouraging and absolutely inspiring.—Julie Sponagle Reiff ’85

~Wendy graduated years before me, but came back to speak with students at what we then called Lab Theatre (now Rooke). We waited a little nervously for the arrival of the great playwright, but the tension was short-lived. I remember Wendy bursting into the Green Room and tossing her coat in the general direction of the piano bench (it sat on the floor for the duration). She crossed the room, stepped up onto the seat of an overstuffed chair, sat on the back, and asked what we wanted to know. The force of her personality, her openness and great humor made that a fascinating afternoon. I last saw her in Wilmington, Delaware in 2001. She was speaking as part of a lecture series and was just as dynamic and generous. She wore a bright blue suit with hot pink socks and brought the house down. I had my copy of Shiksa Goddess signed afterward and she was, as always, thrilled to encounter an MHC sister. The inscription in my book says, “To an uncommon woman, all my best.” Wendy loved MHC and loved the links that bind all of us together. But the thing I’ve really thought about is that last part - that common phrase “all my best.” It’s simple and it’s overused, but it’s what Wendy did. She gave all her best, all the time, to all of us.—Jennifer Wirth Symington ’87

~ Wendy Wasserstein was our commencement speaker. It was 1990, and I sat amidst my friends, waiting eagerly for our diplomas and the official send-off to our new lives. As Wendy spoke, I remember feeling strong and happy. The exact words are lost on me now, but the message remains with me. We are capable, we are smart, we are women who can survive anything in a huge world. Thank you Mount Holyoke and thank you Wendy for promoting our self-confidence, for without that I wouldn’t be where I am today—happy and whole.—Anne Meredith Winograd ’90

~We would meet often, in public places, and of course at various playwriting “events”; she was the “established and much lauded writer,” I was the lesser known. Wendy was always very kind and gracious toward me. She called me her “MHC sister.” We always had so many laughs about how both of us became playwrights and, then, how both of us were Pulitzer-winning playwrights—“it must be in the [Mount Holyoke] water,” she said.—Suzan-Lori Parks ’85

~During sophomore year, Wendy and I were in a folk dancing class together, at the time the easiest way to fulfill Mount Holyoke’s PE requirement. Wendy was by far the most enthusiastic folk dancer I had ever seen. She demonstrated how the dances—particularly the Israeli ones—were supposed to look and feel, and made the class fun for all of us. All the energy and humor later contained in her plays were evident to some of her classmates—and many of her friends—long before she began to write seriously.—Kay Cordtz ’71

~My first encounter with Wendy Wasserstein was in late spring of 1989 when she burst through the doors at Sardi’s in NYC and announced as loudly as she could, “My play won the Tony.” My sister and I rushed to her side though we barely knew who she was. We had seen the spotlights outside the hotel where the Tonys were being held earlier that evening; and that afternoon had gone to see The Heidi Chronicles on “twofers” [tickets] available in Times Square. The fact that we had seen the play that day, and my recent acceptance into the FP program for the fall, won for us an immediate audience with the playwright and invitations to a Tony party upstairs at Sardi’s. There, Ms. Wasserstein not only mistook a friend of ours for someone from Heidi’s original cast in Seattle, but also laughed off our protestations and swept away from us gathering up more happiness than anyone could hold. Anyone, that is, except Wendy, the night she won the Tony.—Doris A. Rovetti FP’93

~On opening night of Uncommon Women at the Phoenix in NYC, in 1977, she recognized me and was thrilled that the 4th row was filled with young MHC alumnae. She invited me to the opening night party, and our friendship really began from that moment. … After Uncommon Women appeared on PBS in 1979, the college was bombarded with letters decrying “that anti-Mount Holyoke play.” Wendy was surprised and saddened by this, and when I directed it at Lab Theatre the following year she was a constant and ebullient resource, speaking with the cast, suggesting music, discussing the characters, and even loaning the original raccoon coat, an important prop. At a post-show discussion with the audience, the cast, and Liz Kennan, I asked Wendy if she felt she’d written an “anti-Mount Holyoke” play. With tears in her eyes, and a warm smile, she said, “No, I love Mount Holyoke. I wrote a play about my friends.”—Jim Cavanaugh, emeritus professor of theatre arts

~I didn’t know Wendy Wasserstein, but she had a huge impact on my life: Only after watching Uncommon Women and Others on PBS, did I consider applying to Mount Holyoke. In my interview with the dean of admission, I mentioned the powerfully positive impact the play had on me in general and how it motivated me to apply to MHC. After being accepted for early decision, I received a warm and encouraging note from Ms. Wasserstein. You can’t imagine how thrilling this was for a theater-loving young college- bound feminist! I felt connected to something larger and more important than myself—the same feeling I get whenever I’ve watched or participated in the alumnae parade on graduation weekend.

My freshman year, Wendy Wasserstein spoke on campus. Of course I attended her talk, which was thought provoking, inspiring and funny. I nervously waited for the after-talk crowd to thin so I could shyly make my way up to her to thank her for her note the year before. I was dumbfounded when she looked at me, shook my hand, and said, “Alison, I’m so glad to meet you!” and then proceeded to ask me how I was adjusting and enjoying MHC! We exchanged a couple more notes over the next year or so. But what I hold dear is that she took the time to write to me in the first place and not only remembered me, but seemed to genuinely care how I was doing. I think she knew that she was part of the reason I attended MHC and I believe that she cared about whether the two of us were getting along, the way you do when you introduce two friends at a party. I treasure the memory Wendy’s love for MHC and her kindness to me and have told this story to H.S. students considering the College as an example of the type of women one can live, learn, and grow up with at MHC. —Alison M. Gross ’83

~A couple of years after graduating, an event few on the MHC faculty took for granted, Wendy Joy Wasserstein ’71, my often difficult-to-counsel advisee, thinking she might like to go to the Yale Drama School, asked me for a letter of reference. “Wendy Wasserstein,” I began, “is a very bright young woman who has far more capacity for first-rate work than her Mount Holyoke record would indicate.”

For those who liked their students to come in orderly packages, Wendy was a challenge. Describing her as “extremely independent,” I observed that this was a student who “followed her own inclinations about course choices, deadlines, and approaches to subjects she was taking.” She declared war on rigidities, which was all well and good, except she got to her senior year with a grab bag of courses. Nothing cohered. Since she was totally immersed during senior spring in a superb production of “Peter Pan” over at Amherst, it was difficult to get her attention.

Finally, through imaginative collaboration, we cobbled together what we managed to sell as a history major to our Registrar, Florence Kimball—an uncommon major crafted by an uncommon woman. When she wrote me into her play of the same name as a young history professor who taught “Women in America” to an all-female audience, I thought she might have been reminding me that this was the deftly-chosen course that gave her an MHC diploma.

Perhaps because she was so conspicuously a different drummer, Wendy, as I summed things up, “was one of the most refreshing, imaginative, capable…students I have had at Mt. Holyoke.” She is “a risk,” I conceded to the admissions people down in New Haven, but she would be “one of the more interesting risks to wander into graduate school in some time.” I remember Wendy with fondness and enthusiasm,” I wrote back then. And I still do.—Charles H. Trout (MHC history professor 1969–80; now president of Harcum College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.)

~In my first semester, our gang was gathered around a dinner table in Pearsons commiserating about essays for freshman English. At some point someone mentioned that Wendy Wasserstein, at the next table, had written her Beowulf essay from the point of view of Grendel. That struck me as so original, made me laugh out loud. I was thrilled to be there. Wendy single handedly formed my first impression of the glamorous, original women and I could look forward to knowing at Mount Holyoke. —Michie Gleason ’72

~[Wendy Wasserstein was] “full of brilliant humor and infectious energy. Her incisive wit influenced many young playwrights and her wild imagination inspired all of us who knew and admired her work.”—Vanessa James, chair of the theatre department at Mount Holyoke

~I had a very brief but pleasant interaction with her when I was the house manager of Uncommon Women at MHC. I was seating people and she was one of the people I ushered and we chatted briefly about her play and she was funny and sweet to me.—Leah Shankman Aizen ’91

~I wrote the following on the www.mhc1999.com Web site; it’s still up there:
Wendy Wasserstein passed away today, Tuesday, January 31st, 2006, at the age of fifty-five. I never met Wendy but I got to fax her once to invite her to Vespers in New York City. She had another engagement and couldn’t make it that night but wrote a personal note. I recall thinking: yep, one of us. I didn’t know until I read today’s L.A. Times piece that at the end of the three plays that make up The Heidi Chronicles, Heidi’s sixteen-year journey as a feminist and art history professor leaves her feeling sad and lonely but that she adopts a baby. Betty Friedan was unimpressed but I still am at what Wasserstein did for feminism and for Mount Holyoke. I cannot imagine that every alum, student, faculty, and staff member who hears the news will not feel some sense of profound loss for all of the gains Wendy made. It is simple to say that because Wendy went to Mount Holyoke, I feel that I can do whatever she did or even more. But it is true. I often say that Mount Holyoke women are my heroes, and [she is] one of those most often named, one of my most hilarious sisters, and one of those who offered me so much hope, will be missed but she will never be forgotten. For everything Heidi and Wendy accomplished in their lives, we can each find another path that is a little less lonely, a little more powerful, and a lot more true to our dreams and wishes.—Jen Gieseking ’99

~Although I did not know Wendy personally, I first connected with her when she spoke at graduation for the class of 1990. She was contemplative, witty, feminist (but not strident) … She made the graduates laugh and made my dad squirm in his seat a little. Her speech was terrific! I became an instant fan and sought out her plays and essays, devouring them. She made me laugh, she reminded me of Mount Holyoke through her many references, and the power and importance of friendship. When I heard of her death, I was sad for the loss to the literary community, sad that there will be no more essays and plays, and devastated for her little girl.—Heather Lee Ingram Whipple ’90

~I did not know Wendy Wasserstein but she certainly made an impression on me. In 1991, I was applying to the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. One of the [grad school] application essays asked who I would like to sit next to on a transatlantic flight. I immediately thought of Ms. Wasserstein. I had read and seen many of her plays. She really touched me with her insight into women. I wrote about our fictitious flight together, and was accepted to business school. I remember how her name was mentioned by the dean at orientation that fall as one of the more unique people chosen as a travel companion. Thanks for your work, Wendy. I really would have enjoyed our flight together.—Diane Letourneau Ruffo ’89

~When I was sixteen, a friend’s brother gave me a copy of Uncommon Women and Others. I fell in love with the smartness of the dialogue and set out for Mount Holyoke two years later in search of such great conversation. I was thrilled to have Wendy Wasserstein as our commencement speaker. Not long after I moved to New York City, I wrote to her about a possible book project. I was working as an editorial assistant in children’s publishing and had the idea of asking Wendy to write a children’s book about a contemporary kid in Manhattan. She wrote back the loveliest note saying that it was something she had thought of doing herself. She did eventually publish a book, Pamela’s First Musical, and I was always pleased to have been one of the first people to have heard about it.—Susan Van Metre ’90

~I went to a book signing at the bookshop across the street from campus. Wendy was so personable and encouraging to me for continuing my acting, directing and writing. I love her plays and will miss her new ones.--Meg Herz Harlor, class of 1965.

~I met Wendy Wasserstein with Christopher Durang at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan in the early 1980s. They were reading works from Yale they had written individually and collaboratively then and after. It was her poignancy telling losses that still comes to mind, long after much deserved wide acclaim and unmatched success. As a magazine managing editor, I was asked by other magazines to join them to witness this “brilliant” rising star. The tough NYC market proved her talent unsurpassed and fame inevitable. She deserved unabashed commitment from the men she inspired and loved.--- Merja Lehtinen ’76

~I first met Wendy at the closing night party for the Broadway musical, A Chorus Line, in 1990. I was so thrilled to be meeting this brilliant woman. As I introduced myself and told her I had graduated from Mount Holyoke, she got very excited. Right away she exclaimed, “did you hear about our lacrosse team winning today!?” (It’s been a while—I’m pretty sure it was lacrosse, maybe rugby.) She was just so excited that this team was doing so well and had won their game that day. I mean, she was really excited about this! All I could think was, “I am meeting one of our most illustrious playwrights, an important voice for the life of the modern woman, and all she can think about is sports at Mount Holyoke!” She was just so unaffected—it was great.

This meeting left a lasting impression on me, because Wendy at that moment struck me as a person that was totally unaware of her importance, and just wanted to talk about the “real” stuff in life. Maybe that’s why her plays touched us so much; she was so humble and down-to-earth—and so enthusiastic about living life to the fullest. That “uncommonly real” woman’s voice will be missed—Tami Dahbura ’84

~I had the pleasure of having Wendy and her former MHC roommate stay at my home for three days in 1990. They came at my invitation to attend a production of “Heidi Chronicles” in Santa Fe, where Wendy attended the opening performance and another where she participated in a Q and A after the play. I had an MHC gathering at my house in her honor with alums from age 35 to 85. It was a delightful event. Wendy wrote a short play in my guest book - something I will always treasure. Her untimely death is such a terrible loss.—Ann Neuberger Aceves ’56

~Wendy was by far the funniest, most self-deprecating member of the class from its first days to her last. She never failed to impress me. While I lived in Washington, D.C., Wendy came to several alumnae events—generously contributing her time to the College. I also admired her contributions to other endeavors, such as the Guggenheim Awards selection committee. I will never forget a New Year’s Day interview on the Today show: Gene Shalit asked Wendy what the most memorable event of the prior year was and she answered without missing a beat—“having a poet elected president of the Czech Republic!” I always enjoyed her company and wished that I could have spent more time with her. Sadly for me, it was not meant to be. —Sarah Jane Hughes ’71

~Wendy was so memorable, how is it that she and I never met at Mount Holyoke? It was my first year teaching at the college and, unluckily, she was not in my course, but by the time we got to know each other well in New York she had decided I had been one of her teachers. This was an idea I found so flattering that I never let truth get in its way. I think it must have been at an alumnae dog and pony act that we did meet, but it was around her plays that our friendship grew. I think Mary and I saw all of her work – except the last one. It was sold out almost before it was announced, let alone opened.

We saw The Sisters Rosensweig at a Wednesday matinee – surrounded by half of the West Side’s sisters Rosensweig, who were having a wonderful time laughing at themselves. And we were pitching out of our chairs as well. There is no point in saying how funny Wendy could be and how perceptive she was portraying her post-Mount Holyoke world. The Heidi Chronicles came along when the AIDS epidemic was devastating the cultural community in New York. Wendy went to too many memorial services and that fact informed her most profound play.

I recall too a drink just after Ben Brantley, I think it was, had written a flat review of one of her plays. It may have been The Senator’s Daughter. Wendy was funny even about that, though it hurt. It was that play that gave me the most immediate fun. You will recall that the woman in that play, an aspiring politician, was related to President Ulysses S. Grant. I think there was a family portrait on the Georgetown wall; there were certainly several apt references to Grant’s mixed presidential career. I had written a biography of Grant and, as Wendy put it, she had loved plundering what I had had to say. We had a great time going back stage the night we saw Daughter; Wendy had tipped off the actors that we were in the audience and we had a good laugh, but actually the general had come off pretty well.

Huge gaps of time intervened between our meetings, but when we did meet, we picked up as if we had bumped into each other the week before. I had no idea how badly I would miss her when I read that too-soon obituary in the Times.
—William S. McFeely, former MHC history professor

This has been excerpted, with permission of the author, from the essay by Miriam M. Chirico ’91, “Female Laughter and Comic Possibilities: Uncommon Woman and Others,” which was originally published in Modern Dramatists: A casebook of Major British, Irish, and American Playwrights (edited by Kimball King, Routledge, 2001). In this essay, Chirico “examines the traditional comic structure, characters, and spirit of Uncommon Woman and Others, arguing that the formal features of comedy suit the play’s feminist perspective on women’s place in patriarchal society.”

…For Wendy Wasserstein, comedy is a way of concretizing hypothetical scenarios: “Sometimes funny things are almost like the fantasy, and then it comes real” (Interview 1988, 270). Her comedy Uncommon Women and Others puts this theory into practice by inviting the audience into the all-female world of Mount Holyoke College to witness a group of women create and define themselves in the wake of the feminist movement. Written originally as a one-act play for her master’s thesis at Yale School of Drama in 1975, Uncommon Women grew out of Wasserstein’s desire to see an all-women’s curtain call at the end of a performance.

     …As social critique, the genre of comedy is often overlooked by women playwrights, either for its lack of authorial weight or inability to treat serious issues, a bias which originates with Aristotle’s dismissal of comedy in the Poetics. Wasserstein’s plays are often criticized for their lack of serious subject matter in comparison to other female playwrights such as Marsha Norman and Beth Henley. Benedict Nightingale, writing about Isn’t It Romantic, criticizes Wasserstein’s humor as “too strong, too infectious” (14), making it difficult to take her characters seriously and preventing Wasserstein from probing beneath the surface of the play to explore the pain more rigorously. John Simon also voices the concern that the playwright and the characters are too young to have had any meaningful experiences in their lives upon which they can reflect, although he seems to ignore the “coming-of-age” paradigm considered crucial in the developmental literature of young men. However, Wasserstein draws on a long tradition of comedy to reify her all-woman space, specifically comedy’s emphasis on surmounting obstacles, creating community, and discovering alternative solutions.
     Wasserstein’s own theoretical reasoning of humor within her plays is that it permits women to disclose painful incidents while simultaneously deflecting that pain, and to discuss distressing events or feelings without naming them directly. “You are there [in the moment], and you are not there,” she explains, adding, “You don’t share equally about every topic” (Interview 1987, 425). The dialogue that results is a kind of layered conversation, where the humorous, spoken remarks at the surface belie the pain underneath, creating a subtext to almost every conversation that the audience sensed on a nonverbal level (Interview 1987, 425) Holly’s speech near the end of act 2 of Uncommon Women, for example, demonstrates this kind of subtext in which she expresses the fears she has for her future.
     …The fact that Wasserstein approaches a “woman-conscious drama” through a comic lens enables her to examine the feminist issues with hopefulness and vitality within a communal setting. While tragedy deals with change and development over time and usually focuses on the individual, comedy leans toward the episodic and the momentary with an emphasis on relationships between people. Through an examination of the play’s traditional comic structure, comic characters, and comic spirit, I argue that Wasserstein’s comedic form provides an ideal medium to examine feminist issues because it reinforces the female space and stems the patriarchal tides that constantly threaten to undermine the women’s world.
     …The spirit of comedy comes as much from the performance as from the script—the lewd faces, the accompanying ironic gestures to the songs, the communal dance ending act 1, and Rita’s impersonation of Susie Friend. Wasserstein describes this sensation that occurred during the rehearsals for Uncommon Women: “There was something special between the actresses and me. I can remember being in the dressing room with Swoosie Kurtz and Jill Eikenberry and Alma Cuervo, and Anna Levine, Glenn Close, and Ellen Parker and there was the sense of embracing, a sense of all starting out together … again, that feeling of community. And I would say I feel it more at the laughter than at the applause” (Interview 1987, 429). She speaks here of the indefinable quality of renewal that comes not only from a successful opening performance but rather from the collaborative efforts of these women and the laughter that echoes this communal spirit. For comedy, as Langer reminds us, more than offering solutions to a predicament, heightens the vital feeling: “The conflict with the world whereby a living being maintains its own complex organic unity is a delightful encounter”(82). As spectators we have a secure emotional realization that the uncommon women before us will continue to strive and grow because of their laughter and wit. “Laughing at something is the first sign of a higher psychic life,” Nietzsche says in Beyond Good and Evil, and Wasserstein fully relies on this sense of the comic spirit to draw the spectators into the triumphs of her characters in performance. “The comedy itself is a spirit,” she remarks. “It’s not an application form, a résumé, it’s life. This life spirit creates a current, buoyancy which, getting back to drama, is very important. It’s important to reach the essence of that spirit in what you create” (Interview 1987, 421).

What Wendy Wasserstein Wrote and Said About MHC

Wendy Wasserstein during her MHC days

“As I sat where you [seniors] are today, I remember thinking as each of my classmates paraded by, ‘Oh, she’s done everything right with her education. And I’ve done everything wrong.’—[from her 1990 MHC commencement address]

[While at Yale School of Drama] “I decided I wanted to see an all-women’s curtain call … so I began writing Uncommon Women and Others, about my friends and my times at this college. And it was at that time that I understood the extraordinary value of a liberal arts education at a women’s college. I learned at Mount Holyoke the value of an individual woman’s voice. And there was a higher purpose to what I enjoyed most here; talking to my friends and taking the time to really know them. In other words, what may well resonate in your later life is not the exact causes of the Franco-Prussian War or the water imagery in The Faerie Queene, or a day in the life inside [a] Skinner box, but the sense of self that you formed here.”—[from her 1990 MHC commencement address]

“When I was a student, we gathered in the living room every Sunday and Wednesday for Gracious [Living] and I thought when I get out of here, I’ll never have dinner in the wilderness with twenty-seven girls in hostess gowns.”—[from her 1990 MHC commencement address]

“I know Mount Holyoke had a profound effect on my life. Not because I got into a better graduate school, learned to organize my time, or keep a file of facts. But because of the dignity of the women I met here and therefore the dignity that I learned to allow myself.”—[from her 1990 MHC commencement address]

• Rita: … I’m not going to throw my imagination away. I refuse to live down to expectation. If I can just hold out till I’m thirty, I’ll be incredible.—From Uncommon Women and Others

• Holly: You know, for the past six years I have been afraid to see any of you [her College friends]. Mostly because I haven’t made any specific choices. My parents used to call me three times a week at seven A.M. to ask me, “Are you thin, are you married to a root-canal man, are you a root-canal man? And I’d hang up and wonder how much longer I was going to be in “transition.” I guess since college I’ve missed the comfort and acceptance I felt with all of you. And I thought you didn’t need that anymore, so I didn’t see you.

• Kate: Holly, I don’t want to go back and have Gracious Living and tea anymore. But I still want to see all of you. We knew we were natural resources before anyone decided to tap us.

• Holly: Let’s have a toast.
—From Uncommon Women and Others

Wendy Wasserstein Information on Other Web Sites

› Village Voice

A friend and colleague of Wendy’s remembers her life and work. He writes, “Wendy giggled the first time I met her, when she was an incoming student playwright at the Yale School of Drama and I was the (rather self-important) literary manager of the Yale Repertory Theatre...”

› Ms. Magazine online

Reflections from an old friend’s of Wendy’s. She writes, “We never have to say ‘you weren’t there, you can’t possibly understand.’ We just hand our children Wendy’s life’s work…”

› Christian Science Monitor

A personal remembrance, including interviews with original cast members of her plays; the author calls Wasserstein the “…most accomplished American playwright of the baby boom generation…”

› NYTimes.com

Obituary, with extensive description of Wendy Wasserstein’s life and work.

› Washington Post

Obituary.

› Washington Post

A reflection on Wendy’s impact on women and theater, focusing on her ability to mix humor with social commentary and feminism. The author says Wendy was “…sort of the Neil Simon of the ERA.”

› Playbill.com

Obituary.

› Playbill.com

News, Broadway to dim lights for Wendy.

› Jewish Women’s Archive

A look at Wendy’s importance to Jewish women.

› Mount Holyoke Archives and Special Collections

Note: Wendy Wasserstein had been giving the archives her papers for many years. Professional papers relating to her literary works, and correspondence, are currently being processed but will be available to scholars as soon as processing is complete.

 

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