Reading of Jan Balakian's New Book, 'Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein,' 3/15

Applause Theatre & Cinema Books is excited to invite you to a free book event on March 15th at 7 PM at Bluestockings Books. Author Jan Balakian will read from her new book, "Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein," and will be happy to sign copies afterward. Books will be on sale at the event.

The event is free and open to the public and is located at 172 Allen St. New York, NY.

Wendy Wasserstein, playwright and social historian, balanced comedy and drama in her plays about social status in Manhattan, Jewish-American identity, and the changes and compromises brought about by feminism and liberalism in the 20th century. She was inspired by the works of Chekhov, S. Behrman, Moss Hart, Noel Coward, as well as the ideas of Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, and Susan Faludi.

Jan Balakian's essays place Wendy Wasserstein's seven major plays, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, in historical context, showing the connections between the evolution of the women's movement in America and the conflicts in her plays.

"Reading the Plays of Wendy Wasserstein" includes interviews with the playwright before her death in 2006, conversations with Wasserstein's close friends playwright Christopher Durang and director Dan Sullivan, and 50 black and white illustrations, including handwritten pages from Wasserstein's notebooks. Balakian's access to these notebooks at the Wasserstein archives at Mount Holyoke provides readers with a window into the playwright's creative process.

Jan Balakian has published numerous essays on American drama and written a prize-winning screenplay, Everyone's Depressed, about the transformative power of literature on students-which was produced as an independent film. She is a professor of English at Kean University in Union, NJ, where she teaches modern American drama and playwriting.