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Career > > 1996 > An American Daughter

An American Daughter

May 31, 1996 - June 02, 1996 · Seattle Repertory Theater
Directed by: Daniel J. Sullivan · Literature: Wendy Wasserstein
"An American Daughter" focuses on Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes (read by Meryl Streep), an expert on health care and the fortysomething daughter of a longtime Senator. When the President nominates her to a Cabinet post, a minor indiscretion from her past is discovered and the media whips it into a scandal which imperils her confirmation and divides her family and friends. Lyssa is then forced to make a decision in a no-win situation: continue to pursue the post and face an ugly Senate hearing or decline the nomination and become a sacrificial lamb for the President. Partisan politics in our nation's capital, however, are nothing compared to the heated personal politics in Lyssa's Georgetown living room, where her complicated relationships unravel with her father, husband and best girlfriend - not to mention her encounters with a neo-feminist author named Quincy Quince (read by Julianne Moore).
Cast & Characters
Meryl Streep (Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes), Julianne Moore (Quincy Quince), Adam Arkin (Walter Abrahmson), Penny Fuller (Chalotte "Chubby" Hughes), Liev Schreiber (Jimmy), Lynne Thigpen (Judith B. Kaufman)
Related Productions

The third collaboration between Meryl and Wendy Wasserstein after the television taping of Wasserstein’s play “Uncommon Women… and Others” and an uncredited voice cameo in “Isn’t It Romantic”, “An American Daughter” was first performed as a reading at the Lincoln Center in 1996 with Streep reading the part of Lyssa. Dr. Lyssa Dent Hughes seems to have it all, a loving husband, smart kids, a lovely home, a politically prominent father, a highly successful career and now a nomination to become U.S. Surgeon General. However, in Wendy Wasserstein’s play, Lyssa suddenly becomes the center of a national controversy.