It's the birthday of the playwright Wendy Wasserstein, born in Brooklyn, New York (1950). She's best known for her play "The Heidi Chronicles". She said, "I loved the theater. I just didn't think you could do it as a profession. I thought that I would marry a lawyer or be one and do productions of 'Guys and Dolls' at my local suburban playhouse."

But she took a playwrighting course in college and struggled to make it as a playwright in New York City. During her years of struggle, she was watching as most of her friends and siblings got married and had children. She thought a lot about what she'd sacrificed by devoting herself to theater, and that became the subject of "The Heidi Chronicles".

(from Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac" on National Public Radio--NPR--in the U.S.)