Meet the Playwright

Lauren Gunderson

Born in 1982 in Atlanta, Lauren Gunderson is widely considered one of, if not the, most produced playwrights in the country. According to American Theatre magazine, which annually collects season data from 385 Theatre Communication Group member theatres across the country, Gunderson’s plays were produced more than any playwright not named William Shakespeare during the 2017-18 and 2019-20 season. During the 2018-19 season she was second behind Lucas Hnath. In addition to playwriting, Gunderson is a screenwriter and short story author who received her BA in English/creative writing from Emory University and her MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University Tisch.

To date, Gunderson has had more than 20 plays produced to national praise and acclaim. She is a two-time Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award winner as well as a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn and One Chambers Award. She also has won the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award. In addition to her plays and awards, Gunderson speaks nationally and internationally about the intersection of science, theatre, and arts activism. In January 2021, Gunderson had the digital world premiere of The Catastrophist, about virologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe, Gunderson’s husband. Gunderson is also working on a new musical, Jeannette, with Ari Afsar, about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress.

I and You, one of Gunderson’s two Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award-winning plays alongside The Book of Will in 2018, takes place in a realistic teen girl’s bedroom. High schoolers Caroline and Anthony are working on a homework assignment centered around Walt Whitman and his poem “Song of Myself.” Caroline hasn’t been to school in months, homebound due to an illness, and the arrival of the athletic, popular Anthony comes as a surprise. As the play progresses, and the two engage in study-buddy banter and proceed to let down their guards, Gunderson uses the play to explore themes of death and legacy, with an ending that has garnered praise from across the country, including the New York Times calling it “an explosive twist.” Times critic Ben Brantley called Gunderson’s conclusion “genuinely shocking, on several levels,” when reviewing a 2016 Off-Broadway production at 59E59 Theaters.

The play had its world premiere at Marin Theatre Company in California as part of a National New Play Network rolling world premiere in 2013. There were seven professional production across the country in 2014. The play won the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award in 2014. In 2018, the play was produced at the Hampstead Theatre starring Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.

The question is always: well if you want to write, what do you want to write about? I find such incredible intrigue in history. Theatre has this wonderful ability to feel like time travel, to write about historical moments. And I just love that. Also, it’s a place where we can examine our current state of mind, but examine them through history. The history is a lens to understand where we are now. I think that’s very true and helps us understand who we are by looking at who we were.” - Gunderson to St. Ambrose University