Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein died today in New York after a long illness. She was 55. Best known for wry comedies such as "The Heidi Chronicles," her plays often concerned women who, as contemporary and fiercely independent as they may have been, still found themselves defined in old-fashioned ways by society. But she wasn't a polemicist: "I want my plays to be open and interesting to as many people as possible," she wrote in 1995. "I wouldn't want an audience of only upper-class Jewish women to come to The Sisters Rosensweig. I wouldn't want an audience of only feminists for The Heidi Chronicles. I wouldn't want an audience of all Wendy Wassersteins for any of my plays. That would be terrible!"
Off topic a bit, but worth noting.