An American Daughter

by Wendy Wasserstein Narrated by Mary McDonnell, Gregory Itzin, Full Cast

Overview

Pulitzer-Prize winner Wendy Wasserstein spins a comic and moving tale about the pitfalls that await political appointees. As a respected health crusader and devoted wife and mother, Dr. Lyssa Hughes seems perfect for the role of U.S. Surgeon General, until a chance remark at a fashionable brunch sets off a media feeding frenzy.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring David Birney, Anna Gunn, Jamie Hanes, Gregory Itzin, Michael Malone, Kevin McCarthy, Mary McDonnell, Claudette Nevins and Denise Nicholas.

Editorial Reviews

Newsday

Enormously moving, with richly written characters.

USA Today

[A] brave and ambitious play [that] portrays with withering accuracy the damage wrought by the tart-tongued TV culture of Washington.

Newark Star-Ledger

A great big feast of Satirical social comment. In the delicious second act, everything climaxes in one of those terrific scenes that makes an audience hold its collective breath for minutes on end. An American Daughter makes for thoughtful and lively theatergoing.

NY Times

Wendy Wasserstein, the author of and [is] one of the few American playwrights since S.N. Behrman to create commercial comedies of manners with moral and social heft.

NY Newsday

[we] can rejoice...in watching [Wasserstein] become her own bright, eloquent and great-hearted version of George Bernard Shaw. Wasserstein is at least as funny and observant as ever in this smart-talking living-room family play about the nomination of a female U.S. surgeon general. But the playwright is also electrifyingly reconnected to the bizarre, infuriating and defining contemporary forces beyond personal psychology. She has not merely returned to the broader political concerns of her cherished 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning , she has returned with a vengeance, and with her craft honed tough for the task...Wasserstein is beautiful when she's angry...we must not forget to remind you that the play is also enormously moving, with richly written characters...

Variety

With AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER, Wendy Wasserstein gets angry. Or rather, the anger that's always slept beneath her humor wakes up and announces itself...with the playwright's commitment and compassion (and another "c" —craft) that, put together, make for her most ambitious work to date.

NY Post

Political comedies are unusual if only because dramatists rarely seem to take politics seriously enough to make fun of it. Wendy Wasserstein is obviously an exception, for in AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER she is making a distinct and often amusing attempt to expose that soft underbelly of American political life, its media awareness and its consequent confusion of public opinion polls with democracy.

From the Publisher

This brave and ambitious play portrays with withering accuracy the damage wrought by the tart-tongued TV culture of Washington.-Walter Shapiro, USA Today

A daring new play-beautiful, brilliant, angry and funny. Wendy Wasserstein has not merely returned to the broader political concerns of her cherished Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles, she has returned with a vengeance-electrifyingly reconnected. . . . Enormously moving.-Newsday
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Product Details

BN ID:	2940172085260
Publisher:	L.A. Theatre Works
Publication date:	01/24/2001
Edition description:	Unabridged

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