SOURCE: "Wendy, the Wayward Wasserstein," in The Wall Street Journal, February 7, 1984, p. 30.

In the following article, Gold profiles Wasserstein's life and career up to the production of Isn't It Romantic.

One Wasserstein arranges mergers and acquisitions for First Boston. Another runs the communications division of American Express. The third is married to a doctor. And the youngest—well, the youngest Wasserstein writes plays.

However, aberrant her behavior may seem in the context of her family, Wendy Wasserstein appears perfectly normal to the people who concoct lists of promising young American playwrights. Her first play, Uncommon Women and Others, has had more than 1,000 productions on college campuses across the country and has reached an even larger audience on public television. Her second, Isn't It Romantic, is currently a hit off-Broadway, at Playwrights Horizons.

But like the other Wassersteins, who, she says, had originally hoped she'd "marry a lawyer, live...