The play was initially produced at Yale University in 1975, as Wasserstein's master's thesis.
[1] The play premiered Off-Broadway in a production by the Phoenix Theatre on November 21, 1977 and closed on December 4, 1977 after 22 performances.
The play is thus a series of flashbacks to the 1972-1973 school year as seven seniors and one freshman try to "discover themselves" in the wake of second-wave feminism.
[4] A made-for-television film was broadcast on the PBS Great Performances series in 1978, with all of the stage cast reprising their roles, except that Meryl Streep played Leilah.
[5] [6] In reviewing the 1994 revival, Jeremy Gerard wrote in Variety that the premiere of Uncommon Women and Others was "a happy matching of a new writer with a gifted director and an amazing cast, all for a play that seemed to distill the conflicts and uncertainties of its time into a memorable blend of raunchy wit and sober apprehension...a new voice in the theater had an extraordinary debut.