Lauren Gunderson

I and You was the winner of the 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award,[11] and a finalist for the 2014 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.[12] I and You was produced at Hampstead Theatre in 2018 and starred Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams.[13] Gunderson was awarded the Lanford Wilson award from Dramatists Play Service in 2016.[14]

Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, about the real-life 18th-century physicist Émilie du Châtelet, was commissioned and developed at South Coast Repertory as part of their 2008 Pacific Playwrights Festival directed by Kate Whorisky. It was produced the following year directed by David Emmes. On 25 January 2011, it opened in West Seattle, at Arts West Theater. It is published by Samuel French, Inc. (2010).[15] Émilie received its European and British premiere in Oxford, UK during February 2014.[16]

Parts They Call Deep won 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 Theater. "Parts They Call Deep" and Background won her the Essential Theatre Prize in 2000 and 2004.[17] Background, about physicist Ralph Alpher, was published by Isotope: A Literary Journal of Nature and Science Writing (2009, issue 7.2).[18]

Gunderson wrote the book to the musical We Won't Sleep, about U.S. Rep. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. The music and lyrics were written by Arianna Afsar. Under the title Jeannette, it was part of the 2019 summer series at the National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. We Won't Sleep is scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tony Award-winning Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia in 2022.[19]

The Taming is an all-female political farce which premiered at Crowded Fire Theater Company in 2013.[21] Inspired by Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, The Taming explores what happens when a beauty queen with a constitutional law degree, a Republican senator's aide, and a liberal online influencer are all locked in a hotel together, trying to make a better America. Gunderson made this play free to produce on the night of the 2017 presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, citing her belief that theater, art, and stories have the ability to make lasting change.[22]

In April 2018, Gunderson created a national campaign of theater activism with royalty-free readings of her play Natural Shocks to address domestic violence and gun violence against women.[23] Theaters across the U.S. participated in these readings including, The Know Theatre and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.[24]

In both instances, Gunderson stipulated that all proceeds from the productions be given to charitable causes.[22][24]