O'Donnell was known as a playwright, novelist, and librettist.

He published two collections of comic stories "Elementary Education" and "Vertigo Park and Other Tales" as well as two novels, "Getting Over Homer" and "Let Nothing You Dismay." His humor, cartoons and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic and Esquire. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the George S. Kaufman Award.

He collaborated with Bill Irwin on an adaptation of Moliere's Scapin and co-authored a translation of Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear. He also adapted Feydeau's Private Fittings for the La Jolla Playhouse and a symphonic version of Pyramus and Thisbe for the Kennedy Center.

Mr. O'Donnell said, "Everybody has parents. As a dramatist, whenever you write a character, you must write their parents as well, even if the parents aren't there. It's an interesting show because we've got four mothers and four daughters. This is a show about families."

Source: Playbill.com