I and You

MRT: Debut. NYC: The Foreigner (Catherine), The Heights Players; King Kong (Ann Darrow), Radio Theatre NYC; Twelfth Night (Olivia), Co-Op Theatre East. Regional: Amadeus (Constanze), Bus Stop (Elma), Center Stage Baltimore. Film/TV: Boardwalk Empire (Doris), Girls, Bait. Education: NYU Tisch Graduate, Stella Adler Studio. Other: For my ever supportive parents.

Lauren Gunderson is a playwright, screenwriter and short story author from Atlanta, Georgia. She received her BA in English/Creative Writing at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.

She was awarded the prestigious Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for her play I and You (also a Susan Smith Blackburn finalist and featured in American Theatre magazine, July 2014), which was a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Her play Silent Sky (Jane Chambers Award finalist) premiered at South Coast Repertory in 2011 and was further developed and rewritten for TheatreWorks, which opened to raves calling it "sheer magic." Her 2011 three-city rolling world premiere of Exit, Pursued By a Bear was featured in American Theatre magazine and The Week, and has reached 20 communities across the US, winning "Best Comedy" accolades. Bear is published by Playscripts, Inc., as is her comedy, Toil And Trouble, the second in her Shakespeare Cycle of modern comedies inspired by Shakespearean plays.

Her first musical, The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog!, was commissioned by the Kennedy Center and opened to rave reviews and continues its life in a state-wide tour in Florida. Dr. Wonderful is becoming a series of children's books published by Amazon. She is the co-book-writer for The Happy Elf, the Christmas musical with music and lyrics by Harry Connick Jr.

Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight (published by Samuel French) was commissioned and premiered at South Coast Repertory in 2009, and has run across the country and in England. By And By, her Sci-Fi father-daughter drama, premiered with Shotgun Players in Berkeley in 2012. Fire Work was developed at the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and is a 2011 winner for Aurora Theatre Company's Global Age Project, and will premiere at TheatreFIRST in 2014. She has developed plays with Second Stage Theatre, Red Bull Theater, and Primary Stages in NYC; New Repertory Theatre in Boston; Playwrights Foundation, Crowded Fire Theater, TheatreWorks, Aurora Theatre Company, and Magic Theatre in San Francisco; Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas; Synchronicity, Actor's Express and Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta; JAW: A Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage in Portland; WordBRIDGE, Brave New Works, and others.

Her work has received national praise and awards including being a Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award winner, a Susan Smith Blackburn finalist, a Jane Chambers Award finalist, and winner of the Berrilla Kerr Award for American Theatre, Global Age Project, Young Playwrights Award, Eric Bentley New Play Award and Essential Theatre Prize. She has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory (three times), Crowded Fire Theater, the Alliance Theatre's Collision Project, Marin Theatre Company, Actor's Express, Dad's Garage Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, City University of New York and Synchronicity. Leap was published with The Playwriting Center of Theater Emory (2004), and her first collection of plays, Deepen The Mystery: Science and the South Onstage, is published with iUniverse (2006). She received a Sloan Science & Film Award (2008) for her screenplay Grand Unification, and her short story "The Ascending Life" won the Norumbega Fiction Award and was published in the anthology The Shape of Content; her science play Background was published in Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing. Her string theory poem "Hook of a Number" was published in the anthology Riffing On Strings.

She has spoken nationally and internationally on the intersection of science and theatre and Arts Activism, and teaches playwriting in San Francisco. She is a Playwright in Resident at the Playwrights Foundation, a Dramatists Guild member, and was a member of Just Theater's New Play Lab. She occasionally writes for The Huffington Post, tweets @LalaTellsAStory, and curates HowToPlaywright.com.

MRT: Debut. National Tour: A Christmas Story: The Musical First National Tour. Broadway (Associate Scenic Designer): Allegiance, The River, Peter and the Starcatcher, Ann: The Ann Richards Play, Cyrno de Bergerac, The Importance of Being Earnest, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, All About Me, White Christmas, Curtains. Off-Broadway: Skeleton Crew, Atlantic Theatre Company; The Happiest Song Plays Last, Second Stage; The Piano Lesson, The First Breeze of Summer, Signature Theatre; Life Could Be a Dream, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Three Mo’ Tenors, Pygmalion, Brando. Regional: Arena Stage, American Conservatory Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Pasadena Playhouse, Two River Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Northlight Theatre, Signature Theatre (Arlington, VA), Bucks County Playhouse, Ogunquit Playhouse, Arst Center, Musical Theatre West, San Jose Repertory, Center Rep.

MRT: Out of the City, 13 Things…, Year Zero, Stella and Lou, Glengarry Glen Ross, Memory House, Beat Generation, The Persian Quarter, The Exceptionals, A Picasso, Black Pearl Sings!, Tranced, A View of the Harbor, The Four of Us, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Squeeze Box, and Sanders Family Christmas. Regional: Over 250 productions at: Huntington Theatre; Arizona Theatre Co; Milwaukee Rep; Cleveland Playhouse; Pasadena Playhouse; South Coast Rep; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Arden Theatre; Trinity Rep; among many. Mr. Lilienthal has designed operas for Long Beach Opera; Bard Summerscape; and Portland Opera Repertory Theatre. Awards: Los Angeles Ovation Award for lighting design; nominated multiple times for Boston’s IRNE Award. Education: MFA: California Institute of the Arts. Other: Teaches lighting design at Tufts University; member of the Patriot Program at MRT; Resident Lighting Designer, National Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center 2007-2015.

Broadway: Dames at Sea, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Lion King, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Born Yesterday, The Miracle Worker, Finian’s Rainbow, Brighton Beach Memoirs, A Chorus Line, Gypsy, 39 Steps, White Christmas, Is He Dead?, Inherit The Wind, Journey’s End, Butley, Virginia Woolf, Sweet Charity, Wonderful Town, Movin’ Out, 42nd Street, Music Man, Iceman Cometh, Charlie Brown, Sound of Music, Beauty & the Beast, Last Night of Ballyhoo, Chicago, King & I, Damn Yankees, Lost in Yonkers, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, The Goodbye Girl. Film/TV: Dreamgirls, Chicago, Nine, Hairspray, Carousel (PBS/NY Phil), Six by Sondheim (HBO), So You Think You Can Dance. Regional/ Other: NY City Center Encores! series, Hartford Stage, West Side Story (San Francisco Symphony), Lyric Opera of Chicago, TUTS. Ten-time Artios Award winner.