Irene Wurtzel is a playwright, and teacher of playwrighting. She is a winner of the Margo Jones Playwriting award, the Jane Chambers award for outstanding woman playwright, and a Cine award for a documentary film on the history of the American labor movement. Four plays, co-written with Charlotte Anker, have appeared on and off-Broadway, in regional theater and in England. IN THE MOOD was produced at Olney Theater in September 2006.

Currently Ms. Wurtzel is co-chairman of the Board of Theater J, serves on the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund, and the boards of Shenandoah University and The Phoenix Project. For five years she was chairman of the Board of Enterprise Works/VITA, a non-profit organization whose mission is to alleviate poverty in the Third World by working with small producers to create profitable and environmentally sustainable businesses.

In the past she served on the Board of Arena Stage,and was former former chairman of the board of the Family and Children's Trust Fund of Virginia, a commission aimed at preventing domestic violence and child abuse in Virginia. During the Clinton presidency, she was appointed to the President’s Commission on The Celebration of Women in American History.