Winnie Holzman is an American playwright, screenwriter, actor, and producer. She is best known for writing the book of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical Wicked, and for co-writing the screenplays for the two films based on the musical, Wicked and Wicked: For Good. She also created the television series My So-Called Life. Holzman's other television work includes the series Thirtysomething and Once and Again. Her other stage work includes short plays (in which she appeared with her actor husband, Paul Dooley) and the full-length drama, Choice.
Holzman contributed scenes to the 1983 satirical musical comedy revue Serious Bizness, which ran at O'Neils Upstairs cabaret in New York City.[4][5]
While at NYU she wrote the musical Birds of Paradise (with composer David Evans), which was produced Off-Broadway in 1987 and directed by Laurents.[6] It got scathing reviews.[1]
Holzman has written several plays with her husband, actor Paul Dooley. In the short play Post-its®: Notes on a Marriage, an actor and actress read the posted notes between a couple that span the duration of their lives together.[7] Their first full-length collaboration, Assisted Living, premiered April 5 thorough May 12, 2013, at Los Angeles's Odyssey Theatre, starring the couple.[8] The play was retitled One of her Biggest Fans when it ran at George Street Playhouse (New Jersey) from January 28 to February 23, 2014. Holzman said the play was "something we came up with when we were first married," based on a "stack of fan mail that had sat unopened on Paul's desk for months."[9] In the play, "The lives of a cantankerous soap opera star and his makeup artist collide with the those of his biggest fan and her father with the discovery of a piece of fan mail that changes everything -- though perhaps not in the ways they once expected."[10] Holzman has described the play as being about " how other people make you change, and how the things that happen in everyday life – the interventions and interactions – change you."[9]
Holzman's play, Choice, premiered at Huntington Theater Company (Boston) in 2015.[13] It is a complex, sometimes surreal, comedic drama touching on topics that include parenting, friendship, and abortion. An updated version of the play was produced at McCarter Theater (New Jersey) from May 8 to June 2, 2024, with a cast that included Ilana Levine, Dakin Matthews, Caitlin Kinnunen, and Jake Cannavale. The 2024 production incorporated references to the COVID-19 pandemic and set the play in 2020/21.[14][15]
Television
In 1988, Holzman's husband, actor-writer Paul Dooley, got a job in Los Angeles on the TV series Coming of Age. While visiting her brother, cinematographer Ernest Holzman, on the set of thirtysomething, writer Richard Kramer suggested she should write for the show. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz bought a spec script from Holzman, and she went on to become a staff writer on thirtysomething in 1989.[1] She wrote nine episodes during its last two seasons.[3] Zwick and Herskovitz later executive produced My So-Called Life, a show about a teenage girl. Holzman went from story editor to executive story editor to a creator and writer of the show.[1]
Holzman has collaborated on various short films with her daughter, Savannah. They penned a TV pilot based on the Sasha Paley novel Huge, which ABC Familygreenlit in January 2010 with a direct-to-series order.[16][17]Huge premiered in late June 2010. The show team included Holzman, Dooley, her daughter, and her brother, who was the cinematographer.[1] The series was cancelled on October 4, 2010, due to low ratings compared with the network's other summer hits.[18]
Holzman wrote the screenplay for the Universal Pictures film adaptation of Wicked. It will be released in two parts. The first, Wicked Part One, was released on November 27, 2024. The sequel film, Wicked Part Two, is scheduled to be released November 26, 2025.[22]
Acting
Holzman has had a number of acting spots, primarily roles in her own plays with her husband, and cameo roles on her own TV shows. Holzman played the chocolate-obsessed divorced woman in the movie Jerry Maguire and Larry David's wife's therapist on Curb Your Enthusiasm.[8] She wrote and performed several personal essays at the Un-Cabaret spoken word shows in Los Angeles and is featured on their CD Play the Word (Vol. 1).[23]
