19: Writing as Activist and Artist with Lauren Gunderson, Playwright

Lauren Gunderson is the most-produced living playwright in America for both 2016 and 2017.

Her work has been commissioned, produced and developed at companies across the US including South Coast Rep (Emilie, Silent Sky), The Kennedy Center (The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog!), The O’Neill, San Francisco Playhouse, Marin Theatre, Synchronicity, Olney Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, TheatreWorks, Crowded Fire and others.  And, her play, The Book of Will, was recently produced at The Denver Center and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.

You’ll find Lauren’s published plays at Playscripts (I and You, Exit Pursued By A Bear, The Taming, and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (Silent Sky, Bauer, Miss Bennet, The Book of Will) and Samuel French (Emilie).

Lauren studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.

Lauren shares with Marc about writing women characters with fascinating stories to tell, how growing up in Georgia influences her work, how she approaches the writing process, why her interests in Shakespeare and in Science appear in many of her plays, and her commitment to impacting society through writing, business, and other creative decisions as an activist and a theater artist.