Lauren Gunderson is an American playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer. In 2019-20, she was recognized as America’s most produced living playwrights.
Born in Atlanta, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Emory University and then a Master of Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In the course of her career, she has had over 20 plays produced, including I and You, which won the 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. Her first play Parts They Call Deep won the 2002 Young Playwrights National Playwriting Competition and was produced Off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre.
Gunderson’s plays tend to focus on female figures in history, science, and literature, such as the 18th-century physicist Émilie du Châtelet, who is the central feature in Gunderson’s 2008 play Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight. In 2019, she wrote the book for the musical Jeanette, which depicts the U.S. Rep. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. In the same year, her play The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre.
Her 2016 play Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley was one of the most produced plays in the United States in 2018 with a total of 13 productions.
Gunderson is married to the virologist Dr. Nathan Wolfe and has two sons.
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