Sarna Lapine to Direct AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER at La Femme Theatre Productions
Performances begin on July 23 at The Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City.
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La Femme Theatre Productions' next production will be Wendy Wasserstein’s timely play An American Daughter, beginning July 23 in advance of its opening on August 11, 2026 on The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City. The production will be directed by Sarna Lapine, with casting to be announced.
An American Daughter aptly fulfills La Femme’s mission in that the play, written by a woman, explores the female experience in a production directed by a woman. La Femme’s updated production, featuring an unpublished second act, marks the first New York revival of this sharp-witted play by the trailblazing Pulitzer Prize-winning Wendy Wasserstein, who was the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Play as a solo playwright.
Premiered in 1996, An American Daughter remains one of Wasserstein’s most incisive and sharply observed works. Blending comedy with pointed socio-political insight, the play examines the unraveling of a prominent political family as personal missteps, sexual politics, public scrutiny, and relentless media attention collide. It is a multifaceted tale of a family that cannibalizes its own legacy by undermining the potential of the daughter who carries the family torch – all with a significant assist from the media.
At the center of the story is a brilliant, accomplished woman, poised to step onto the national stage, until a seemingly minor personal oversight ignites a media frenzy that threatens to dismantle her reputation and shatter her dreams. As the story unfolds, Wasserstein deftly reveals the unfair standards placed on women in public life alongside society’s fear of ambitious, powerful women. Exploring the dilemma facing smart, powerful women, the prescient Wasserstein shines a light on just how fractured the American dream is.
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