By Rachelle Hughes and Marlo Ihler
Compelling protagonists (most of them women), modern retellings of history, and science seem to intrigue playwright, screenwriter, and author Lauren Gunderson, and as she starts to spin out stories for the stage, screen, and page, her plot lines and subject matter have created a movement for her work to flood the storytelling world.
Lauren Gunderson has been touted by American Theatre as the most produced living playwright in America since 2015, having topped the list three times. (American Theatre excludes any productions of Shakespeare works or of A Christmas Carol from its rankings.) With over twenty different produced works, her smart blend of science, history, romance, futurism, and intellectual humor has audiences filling theatres across the nation.
“The stories of discovery, the unfolding of human knowledge, the democracy of method, and the life of scientists. I find deep and thrilling drama in the course of scientific progress and put it onstage a much as possible,” said Gunderson of her sources of inspiration (www.laurengunderson.com).
Gunderson was born February 5, 1982 in Atlanta, Georgia. While many playwrights fall into their career after a string of other jobs, Gunderson went into her college years fully committed to the writing life. In an interview with The New Yorker, she did refer to a time in her pre-college years when she dreamed of being a physics major; but by the time she enrolled at Emory University she had brought her love of science with her but changed her focus to writing. She earned her bachelor of arts, studying Southern Literature and Drama, at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.
Even before Gunderson earned her BA in 2004, she was receiving attention for her work. Her first produced play, Parts They Call Deep (2001), garnered her the winning slot in the 2002 Young Playwrights National Playwriting Competition and was produced Off-Broadway by Young Playwrights Inc. as part of the Young Playwrights Festival at the Cherry Lane Theatre.
From the moment her first play was produced, Gunderson has never lost momentum. Her career has been prolific as she has continued to earn recognition and accolades for her work and her collaborations. Awards include the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award, and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award. She was also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Weisberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting. Additionally, she was a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company.
Other theatre companies also keep her busy with commissions to bring her unique brand of plays to life. She has received commissions from South Coast Repertory, Denver Theatre Company, Crowded Fire Theater, the Alliance Theatre’s Collision Project, Actor’s Express, Dad’s Garage Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, City University of New York, and Synchronicity.
Gunderson continues to be in demand because she has a style and writes plots that readers and theatre-goers find compelling. The characters in her plays include the sisters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, coauthored with Margot Melcon; women from the French Revolution in the brutal comedy The Revolutionists; and the wives and daughters of the Bard’s acting troupe in The Book of Will.
Gunderson described her own inspiration for writing in an interview with A Noise Within in April of 2023: “I started performing professionally in Atlanta when I was 10 and quickly adored the process, challenge, and adrenaline of live theater. But I have always been as an audience member first. All of my writing comes from asking myself: ‘What do I want to see? What moves me? What makes me want to come back to the theater again and again. Because if I see a need for a story that’s not yet been told, others will as well” (https://www.anoisewithin.org/interview-with-lauren-gunderson).
Theatre is not the only venue that has seen success for Gunderson. She has worked with MTV, had poetry and scripts published in anthologies and journals, and released a children’s book based on her first musical The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog!, titled Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon. Highly in demand as a national and international speaker, she covers the “intersection of science, theatre, and arts activism” according to her website, laurengunderson.com. She is currently a board member at the Playwrights Foundation. She keeps her writing gift honed by contributing to The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal. She is also in the process of working on several more plays from her home base in San Francisco where she lives with her husband and two children.
Gunderson’s star is clearly on the rise with no sign of slowing down. Perhaps, that is in part because, as theatre critic Nelson Pressley has said, “Her plays are an education, reveling in knowledge and detail” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/ entertainment/theater_dance/the-book-on-lauren-gunderson-topping-us-theater-charts/ 2017/12/11/fea557a2-dcf0-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html?utm_term=.b718fd7475c9). And she reiterates that storytelling ultimately brings us together as people: “Every story is a chance to remind people how much we share as humans, and how much we need each other…all of them aim to honor courage, compassion, and hope” (https://www.anoisewithin.org/interview-with-lauren-gunderson).
