This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jennifer Apple: Hello.

[0:01] Welcome to the Empowered Artist Collective Podcast.

[0:04] I'm your host, Jennifer Apple, a multi-hyphenate actor, educator, acting coach, writer, dog mom, and founder of this vibrant community that champions artists as they carve out their own unique paths in this wild industry.

[0:17] Whether you're just starting out in the thick of it, or seeking a bit of artistic fuel to expand your toolbox, you're in the right place.

[0:24] In this space, we'll have honest conversations, share actionable strategies, tips, and resources, and delve into the messy yet beautiful journey of living a sustainable creative life.

[0:34] We unmask the reality of life as an artist, from navigating career highs and lows to nurturing your full human well-being.

[0:42] I chat with women and non-binary guests who share their personal stories, helpful learnings, and hearts to help you unlock your artistic potential, expand your knowledge, and show up fully and fearlessly in your artistry and daily life.

[0:55] Before we dive into this week's conversation, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

[1:01] If today's chat resonates with you, please leave us a review.

[1:04] It helps us reach even more incredible artists just like you.

[1:07] And hey, feel free to spread the love.

[1:09] Share this podcast with a friend or post it on your socials, making sure to tag @EmpoweredArtistCollective and @JenniferApple_ so we can chat with you there.

[1:18] Alright, grab a cup of something cozy, settle in, and let's get to it.

[1:23] What does it take to move a play from the cloud of an idea onto the page?

[1:27] In this episode of our playwright mini-series, I sit down with one of the most produced playwrights, Lauren Gunderson, to unpack the alchemy of writing stories that matter.

[1:35] Lauren shares how she begins every piece with clarity around the ending, staying obsessed with the story long enough to see it through, then reverse engineers her way through plot, character desire, and emotional arc.

[1:46] We explore her love for lean casts, the joy of adapting classics, her recent deep dive into musicals, and how collaboration fuels her creativity.

[1:54] Lauren offers tools such as balancing personal artistic fulfillment with the needs of theaters and audiences, utilizing collaboration as a creative accelerator, and trusting that a “bad” draft is merely a bridge to something better.

[2:06] No matter the style of writing, this episode is a reminder that good doesn’t come before done and that generosity, curiosity, and resilience are what carry a writer through.

[2:15] Enjoy.

[2:16] Lauren Gunderson is in the space.

[2:18] Hello.

[2:20] Hi, what a dream to be here.

[2:22] For anybody who's not tuning into the YouTube, they should just because again, the second Lauren popped into the screen it's just like vibrancy, a painted wall, books, color, just I'm obsessed.

[2:33] So it's worth checking that out just for the visual, honestly.

[2:37] Um well for anybody who does not know you, who are you today?

[2:41] Lauren Gunderson: Hi, uh you know, changes minute to minute.

[2:45] Um I am a playwright and um I have no idea how to answer that question today, honestly.

[2:52] I don't know.

[2:54] Jennifer Apple: I'll take it.

[2:54] The nebulousness is cool.

[2:56] I feel like that's part of why I ask it because it's like sometimes we feel really strongly about things and sometimes it's just like we're floating or the things feel like they are but maybe they're not I mean it's just a little bit of a grounding moment I think for everyone here.

[3:09] Lauren Gunderson: I am like the least grounded person.

[3:12] So I am a tethered like a balloon to whatever idea I just had or whatever conversation I just had.

[3:19] So I just got off of a really fun um like an outline session of a new musical so I am there in my mind and I am halfway somewhere else because I have other you know what I mean?

[3:31] I'm always like I've I'm I'm not a grounded person.

[3:34] I'm like a cloud hopping person.

[3:37] Jennifer Apple: Oh, I love.

[3:38] I mean, I don't I I don't think that a cloud isn't grounded.

[3:41] A cloud is more like, you know, there's a cloud still knows it's a cloud.

[3:45] That's true, you know, like it still has a its own.

[3:49] Lauren Gunderson: Exactly.

[3:50] Exactly.

[3:50] It's it's kind of seeing things, it's a little bit more nebulous, maybe it changes shape.

[3:55] Jennifer Apple: I learned so much about clouds.

[3:56] Look at this metaphor.

[3:57] This metaphor is great.

[3:59] Lauren Gunderson: You're welcome.

[3:59] I like it's funny because if I think about my education when I was in elementary school, that probably was I learned more about clouds than I did about actual science.

[4:08] I don't know any of the details.

[4:09] But clouds.

[4:10] I had a poster of like all the cloud types on my wall, and I was obsessed.

[4:14] Nimbus, right?

[4:15] Was that a cloud?

[4:17] Lauren Gunderson: We've got stratus, we've got cirrostratus.

[4:20] Right.

[4:20] Like what wild that that was the thing that so many of us continue to know.

[4:24] And could I tell you what what the weather actually is?

[4:26] No.

[4:27] Jennifer Apple: Absolutely not.

[4:29] Uh-huh.

[4:29] A thousand percent.

[4:30] Well, with that, we don't need to be grounded in this moment.

[4:33] We can be wherever we are.

[4:35] I am curious though, as you mentioned, you know, this outline for this new musical.

[4:40] I'm curious to just kind of dive right into your writing land.

[4:46] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[4:46] You have the musical happening, you have these brilliant, brilliant plays that are being produced more than most human beings everywhere at this point.

[4:54] Uh how did you come to this?

[4:56] What what was the beginnings?

[4:58] And how are we now?

[5:00] Lauren Gunderson: I mean, I so I've been writing for a long time.

[5:02] I luckily knew super early on that like theater was my home.

[5:06] Um, and for a while that was as a young actor, which I think so many of us start on that end of things.

[5:13] Sort of not realizing there are other things to do besides show up, take the script and start saying the words.

[5:19] Um, and I realized, you know, after a couple of years of doing, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.

[5:24] Um, which at then was not the vibrant theater scene it is now, but not not that.

[5:30] I mean there was such great innovation in a lot of spaces in the theater.

[5:34] And so I was, you know, a part of that and got to see people really strive and achieve and invent some cool things.

[5:41] And so yeah, but it was always as an actor first and um the feel of the the language and the the the real kind of like animal instinct when you're on stage and clicking into that insta energy um that was just so had such gravity on me and still does.

[6:02] But quickly that turned into kind of like okay this is so powerful this being in this space and the eyes on me and the eyes on my fellow actors and the resuscitation and a revival of words from hundreds of years ago and the new words and all of that was just so powerful like what other stories are we not telling what are the what are the things that we're missing that are right there.

[6:24] And so certainly at that time when I was looking around and seeing really Lenadage's work starting to sort of become more and more uh Paula Vogel Sarah Ruhl um I was blown away by Carol Churchill and of course Lorraine Hansberry and that this world of women um that were starting to to become more on uh more forefronted um but not enough and uh yeah so I I sort of found the opening to say well there's so many stories untold and so many of them are women's so that's where I'm going um and part of it is honestly, writing for myself the brazenness of going, oh, at that moment, thinking, I want more to do than Ophelia and Annie and Juliet, like, let's uh we get Scout.

[7:10] Come on we we we there there's more.

[7:12] There's more there there.

[7:14] Um, so that gave birth to a ton of plays and continues to be sort of the source of so much of what I do, and that changed into I was one of those like eye-rolly musical people where I was like, musical, why are they even singing?

[7:24] And now half of what I do is musicals and I love it.

[7:28] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[7:28] I mean, we were talking about this beforehand, but I give so much of your material to my clients, certainly for like my monologue sourcing work, and it's just so nuanced and meaty and um thought provoking, and it it always wrestles with something.

[7:45] There always feels like an energy behind it, and there's real um humanity layered into every single one of your characters and your worlds.

[7:54] I I mean, I'm clearly a fan.

[7:56] That's why you're here.

[7:57] Um I'm curious how you take your ideas, and you talk about structure all the time on your podcast, but how do you take your ideas and how do you put them into practice?

[8:06] I know for so many folks who listen, the starting is the hardest part, or even the frankly, the finishing, if you have started or the nebulous world of the edits, like how do you make it happen for yourself?

[8:19] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is having a plan.

[8:22] Um, it is not uh an accident where stories go.

[8:27] Um, and so asking yourself early and often, what's the point?

[8:31] Where are we going?

[8:32] What is this character want?

[8:34] What do they have to learn to get that thing?

[8:37] Do they get it?

[8:38] Do they, you know, all of this stuff is um frankly, how how I talk about uh this is a lot about starting at the ending and going as hard as it is to start, much less to end, you gotta know where you're going.

[8:51] Otherwise, you are just wandering.

[8:53] And you can find some great stuff while you're wandering.

[8:55] Take that metaphor wherever you want.

[8:56] Yes, you will find surprise waterfalls and beautiful flowers, whatever, blah blah blah.

[9:01] But um, the journey of a play is not the journey of a hike.

[9:08] Um, and you need to know where you're going because everything in that play needs to earn that ending, and you just can't do that accidentally.

[9:15] So you have to sort of know that means that there is a secret to writing plays, and it is make some damn decisions.

[9:23] It is a hard thing to do for some of us.

[9:26] Uh, but that's the secret.

[9:27] You have to make decisions, and you have to know that you can unmake them, but you have to have the brazenness and the strength to say, yes, they're going to end up together, these two lovers.

[9:36] No, they're not gonna end up together.

[9:38] Yes, he's gonna get what he wants.

[9:39] Yes, she's gonna get the girl, whatever.

[9:42] Um, you have to be able to just say, I know what this is gonna happen, earn that, build it, build towards that.

[9:49] Um, and the main thing is it's that funny thing of going, we don't the experience of writing a play and the experience of watching a play are the opposites, so we don't get to be surprised, but like, he did, oh my gosh.

[10:01] Like, no, no, you made it, girl.

[10:03] Yeah, right.

[10:04] I wrote that, it came out of my brain.

[10:06] Yep.

[10:06] Yes, I hate to tell you, but you are in charge of this.

[10:10] So knowing that, and then also knowing that you can make anything a great story.

[10:14] That isn't like you have to find the special ingredient.

[10:18] You can make anything good as long as it finds uh emotional expansiveness and it finds truth, and it is funny if you want it to be funny, and not if you don't want it to be, you know, oh it's it's in the doing and it's in the uh the craft of the doing that will make it excellent and worthy and all those things.

[10:38] Um, so there's a lot of it that is just you gotta make it for it to be good and good to get to great.

[10:44] You don't have to jump from nothing to great.

[10:46] Um, and it is you can't, honestly.

[10:48] So just make the thing to make the better thing, to make the better and better, better thing.

[10:52] So yeah.

[10:53] Jennifer Apple: This is why I'm doing this series, because you know, talking to Amy in the first one, she's such an intuitive writer where she's like, let me just put these writers in a room and see what happens, where you're like, I must have the ending.

[11:05] And I think that this is why it's brilliant to showcase artists and what they do with this one label that we put them all under.

[11:13] Because it really is just like, yeah, there's no one right way of doing.

[11:16] I'm just I'm just really excited that we're having this conversation because it is showing process in all sorts of ways for access points for people.

[11:25] And so when you are in the like throes of okay, I'm setting out to do this story, and now I have to find my ending.

[11:32] What are you doing?

[11:33] Are you sitting in a room in the quiet of your home in this gorgeous background, being like, let me just sit here and be structured?

[11:38] Are you like going for a walk and jotting down notes and then it comes to you and then it's like what is your process with that?

[11:44] Lauren Gunderson: Um, yeah, a lot of it is all is super internal for a long time.

[11:48] So I will be writing a play for months, sometimes years, and it is just clicking sort of away.

[11:55] Uh the actual writing is usually very fast for me once I actually have the um enough of the answers and enough of those decisions made to say, yeah, I can, there's a lot here that I can I can write it.

[12:09] Um, so sometimes it's two weeks between act one, scene one, and then power through for two weeks, three weeks, and then I have a draft that is not good.

[12:19] Some of it is, um, but there's an ending, and I know where I'm going.

[12:24] Um, and then that's when I have colleagues that I share it with and send it to and start these conversations about okay.

[12:31] My second step, um, well, between the nothing and the script, there's a lot of I can't, I just get obsessed with it.

[12:39] I'm always thinking about it.

[12:40] I now that I work primarily on Google Docs, I have it on my phone, so I'll be like adjusting the play on at a red light.

[12:45] It's terrible.

[12:46] That's not how you should drive.

[12:47] But I'm like line, oh try to find the scene on the phone before the light turns green and type a little note.

[12:53] Um, so it's sort of kind, it just it takes over my my brain, um, which I sort of love the feeling and hate the feeling because it is I do feel obsessed in like a bad way, uh, but also obsessed in a good way.

[13:03] Um, but I I don't know any other way to do this passionate art form than to be a bit too much about it.

[13:09] Um so uh yeah, do that, but it is a continual iteration.

[13:14] Uh, and because it is an art form that is does not want to live on the page, it has to live up in space and in breath and bodies.

[13:21] Um, the sooner I can get it into any version of a reading is best.

[13:26] So I will do that work, but as soon as I know like the end, I will start planning a reading at my house.

[13:32] Just friends, I'm like the deadline is helpful.

[13:35] Usually you can't get, you know, 10 people together for a week or so.

[13:39] So I have a little bit of a deadline to keep futzing with it until that day.

[13:42] And then it's just the chill reading of friends and colleagues that I trust at my house.

[13:46] I feed them usually vegetarian chili.

[13:49] It's now my new play chili.

[13:51] Amazing.

[13:51] Not like very fancy or anything.

[13:53] It's just like you feed a lot of people with that.

[13:55] Um, and uh, and give them, you know, beverages of various sorts, and we just read it.

[14:00] And I learned so much instantly.

[14:02] And the play, it goes from good to greater in that one reading quicker than any other step.

[14:08] Um, so yeah, it's this back and forth between by myself alone and in public and collaboration, by myself in collaboration, by myself in collaboration, which is the story of theater in general.

[14:18] Lauren Gunderson: So um, but yeah, I think about um I usually write very tight scripts, meaning they are um not a lot of extraneous people, as minimal actors as possible, because I just want to spend the most time with my characters, and the more characters, the less time.

[14:35] Lauren Gunderson: So um, a lot of my I love a two-hander, three, four is my sort of sweet spot.

[14:40] Lauren Gunderson: Um, six even feels like woof, it's a lot of people on stage.

[14:45] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so I have uh a sort of intimacy that's built into a lot of my work, which requires people I trust to develop it.

[14:52] Lauren Gunderson: So that means I kind of tend to use a lot of the same folks.

[14:55] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and then it's just a matter of hearing it and following that instinct of not just like what's funny and what's not, but what's meaningful, what's what feels honest, what feels just poetic enough to sort of lift it above normal human life, but also doesn't keep it too too floaty away.

[15:14] Lauren Gunderson: Um yeah, so thank you for sharing all of that.

[15:20] Lauren Gunderson: And it feels even the way you talk about it, it feels like an energized train.

[15:27] Lauren Gunderson: I think so much of my own personal association with my writing process, of which I have a lot of feelings about it, but like with that, it's just like it doesn't feel um, it feels more like okay, we sit and we are here, versus like, no, what this train is moving.

[15:42] Lauren Gunderson: The train I'm on the train, the train has been happening, it's happening at all points of my life, even sitting at a red light, and I'm trusting myself enough to know when I finally sit and do the thing.

[15:52] Lauren Gunderson: It's not like I'm forcing it, it's living and breathing through me in a way that feels a little less efforted, even though it clearly took a lot of quote unquote effort to get to that point of actually knowing exactly what you were going to be releasing.

[16:05] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[16:06] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, exactly.

[16:07] Lauren Gunderson: And it's, I mean, honestly, it feels like I fall in love with a story, but like a crazy, crazy girlfriend kind of love.

[16:12] Lauren Gunderson: I'm not I'm not supposed to say the word crazy, but the idea of like I'm obsessive, I think about it all the time.

[16:18] Lauren Gunderson: I just want to hang out with it.

[16:21] Lauren Gunderson: I can't get enough.

[16:22] Lauren Gunderson: As soon as I leave it, I want to go back.

[16:24] Lauren Gunderson: Like it's just ah, this is I feel it, I see it, I get it, I love it.

[16:28] Lauren Gunderson: Um, because then you want to spend your time with it.

[16:32] Lauren Gunderson: You know, obviously, maybe there's the level of like, you know, uh we can gauge what unhinged is, but it's that's a totally subjective, you know, barometer and for yourself.

[16:41] Lauren Gunderson: Unhinged about this.

[16:42] Lauren Gunderson: I think that is the a good life is being having some things that you get unhinged about.

[16:47] Lauren Gunderson: And me, it's like every day there's another, like, what do I get to be super passionate about today?

[16:52] Lauren Gunderson: And it is.

[16:53] Lauren Gunderson: I also feel like there's a sense of there's a lot of dread around writing um for a lot of people, and I do get that and respect it.

[17:00] Lauren Gunderson: I also think, why?

[17:03] Lauren Gunderson: You're get to make shit up.

[17:04] Lauren Gunderson: This is great.

[17:05] Lauren Gunderson: This is what fun.

[17:06] Lauren Gunderson: Um yeah, there's hard parts to it and and things, but it's it's only sort of as hard as you believe it it is.

[17:13] Lauren Gunderson: Otherwise, you're like, you're making things that you're it's like drawing with crayons as well.

[17:17] Lauren Gunderson: It's like you're that's also creative, and you're making something out of nothing.

[17:21] Lauren Gunderson: So, like you have fun with that, you can have fun with this.

[17:24] Lauren Gunderson: So I try to I try to meet it in that space of what how how much fun I get to have um once this thing is made.

[17:33] Lauren Gunderson: Like once the scene is written, once the play is written, then I get all these great people in a room and we laugh together and we feel together and we talk about all the things that theater lets us talk about and brings people together, and like that's great.

[17:46] Lauren Gunderson: So I gotta write this so I can get that to that, you know.

[17:48] Jennifer Apple: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[17:50] Jennifer Apple: Hi, actor friends, talking to you.

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[18:17] Jennifer Apple: Dive into this free toolkit that I set up just for you that'll set you up to feel agency over your process and artistry.

[18:24] Jennifer Apple: That's Jennifer Apple.net slash freebie and get started on finding your next go-to monologue.

[18:30] Jennifer Apple: Well, how do you get your ideas?

[18:31] Jennifer Apple: Where do they come from?

[18:32] Jennifer Apple: Where do you find your inspiration?

[18:33] Lauren Gunderson: Oh, that's like a weird, dumb question.

[18:35] Lauren Gunderson: But I do think that that's like worth naming.

[18:39] Lauren Gunderson: Like, is it does it just come to you?

[18:41] Lauren Gunderson: Is it an idea?

[18:42] Lauren Gunderson: Is it something that you visually see?

[18:43] Lauren Gunderson: Does it change depending?

[18:45] Lauren Gunderson: Like, obviously, there are you know, when you're commissioned to do something, and I would love to touch on that also, or you know, adapting something that's already been created is a different muscle, but for yourself and your own journey, where do they come from?

[18:57] Lauren Gunderson: I mean, like it's less where you find them and it's more what you do with them.

[19:00] Lauren Gunderson: So you can get inspired by anything.

[19:03] Lauren Gunderson: Um, anything, anything, anything.

[19:05] Lauren Gunderson: And so I have an instinct now that can sort of suss out which of these cool things in history or the news or some poem I read or a painting I saw that feels just like some cool thing that I want to tell someone at a cocktail party.

[19:22] Lauren Gunderson: Did you know that versus the some cool thing that I want to tell someone at a cocktail party that has uh a character worthy and of complexity that the theater deserves and has a journey to go on and has something to lose and has something to learn.

[19:40] Lauren Gunderson: And um, and then yes, I fast forward always all the all the way to the end and sort of imagine what it looks like.

[19:46] Lauren Gunderson: Um, sort of what it feels like, less what it sounds like.

[19:49] Lauren Gunderson: Like I don't have a line in mind, or I'm not writing a monologue, but I do see is this a where they're holding hands, like looking at each other and about to kiss.

[19:59] Lauren Gunderson: That's a different ending than you know, one is weeping and one is stoic and one walks away, leaving the other person.

[20:05] Lauren Gunderson: That's a different ending.

[20:06] Lauren Gunderson: Okay.

[20:07] Lauren Gunderson: We sort of know what those are.

[20:09] Lauren Gunderson: Like I could start to write lines in my brain for that, but I let the visual do it because I think if you've done the work uh of a great play, at the end you don't need to say much to accomplish the things.

[20:20] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so I sort of let myself um think that.

[20:23] Lauren Gunderson: There is a play that I just wrote that's a two-hander that I realize has to end with them together, but what kind of together?

[20:30] Lauren Gunderson: And it's is it a hug?

[20:32] Lauren Gunderson: No, is it a kiss?

[20:33] Lauren Gunderson: Mm-mm.

[20:34] Lauren Gunderson: And so in my mind it was, uh, and it still is.

[20:37] Lauren Gunderson: This is where we're gonna be doing it next year, but we just workshopped it.

[20:40] Lauren Gunderson: But it's like they're on the floor, like they're lying on the floor together in like the sweetest, silliest in the way that like two little kids lie on the grass and are just like looking at cloud shapes.

[20:51] Lauren Gunderson: There's our clouds again, or birds or something.

[20:53] Lauren Gunderson: Um, but like that's what a weird, beautiful, sweet, intimate thing that tells me that like this isn't it's not a sexual thing, it's not a an angsty thing, it's like relaxation, but also sort of giddy.

[21:07] Lauren Gunderson: Cool.

[21:08] Lauren Gunderson: I now know how to get to that.

[21:10] Lauren Gunderson: If that's where we're going, then the rest of the play has to not let them ever have that.

[21:14] Lauren Gunderson: So that helps me go, okay.

[21:16] Lauren Gunderson: I can take the original idea, this image of the ending and connect those two and put them through hell in between those two, as theater wants to do to its main characters.

[21:25] Lauren Gunderson: So I I do allow um that stuff to guide me.

[21:29] Lauren Gunderson: And Mick, even in the biggest plays of mine, like I and you has a big twist ending.

[21:33] Lauren Gunderson: I knew that ending.

[21:34] Lauren Gunderson: I was writing towards that the whole time.

[21:35] Lauren Gunderson: I didn't know exactly how I was going to pull it off in an elegant way.

[21:40] Lauren Gunderson: Um, but I knew that that when that those revelations that would amount to the twist would be.

[21:45] Lauren Gunderson: Book of Will is similar.

[21:46] Lauren Gunderson: Like, I knew we were gonna be at Ann Shakespeare's house, and with that book in hand, and sort of what that explosion would theatrical moment would be.

[21:54] Lauren Gunderson: So I I and then once, you know, once you have what you want to write about, some questions about this character, how far you can push them.

[22:02] Lauren Gunderson: That's the main thing.

[22:03] Lauren Gunderson: You cannot be nice to your characters.

[22:04] Lauren Gunderson: So you have to have a character that has a lot of wants, has a lot of needs, has a lot of fears, has a lot of secrets, and you're gonna push every one of those fear buttons and pull out every one of those secrets and show it to them and make them face it.

[22:17] Lauren Gunderson: And if your character can is withstand that, um, then that's one worthy of writing.

[22:22] Lauren Gunderson: Uh, but it can't be like, isn't this a cool thing that happened to someone in history?

[22:26] Lauren Gunderson: Not a play, not even a very interesting story.

[22:29] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so you have to have all this other extra humanity, and it's gotta be somebody that can wrestle.

[22:35] Lauren Gunderson: And then once you have that element, then that you can start writing for towards it.

[22:39] Lauren Gunderson: You mentioned the gut about it though, that you now have this thing that's able to suss it out.

[22:43] Lauren Gunderson: What exactly is that for you?

[22:45] Lauren Gunderson: Um, it's knowing the complexity that you have to have to sustain a story.

[22:49] Lauren Gunderson: Like a lot of writers, I feel like have a great idea and about 30 pages worth of a play in their mind, and they start writing, and then you hit that 30 pages and you say, I don't know what happens next.

[23:00] Lauren Gunderson: And you're right, you don't, because you don't know.

[23:02] Lauren Gunderson: You should.

[23:03] Lauren Gunderson: This is where the decision making comes in.

[23:05] Lauren Gunderson: Make a damn decision.

[23:06] Lauren Gunderson: I don't know what happens next.

[23:07] Lauren Gunderson: All right, but something can if you say it should.

[23:10] Lauren Gunderson: So maybe say that and do that.

[23:12] Lauren Gunderson: Have someone enter, have them, you know, have a reveal a secret.

[23:17] Lauren Gunderson: Like have if the desire isn't big enough to sustain your character past 30 pages, give them a different desire at or have someone take away the thing they want.

[23:25] Lauren Gunderson: Like you gotta be mean to these characters, you gotta have them struggle.

[23:29] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so I have have that sense of like, is this complex enough?

[23:33] Lauren Gunderson: Not complicated.

[23:34] Lauren Gunderson: We don't want it to be overwrought and you don't want it to be confusing, but you want it to be complex.

[23:38] Lauren Gunderson: There's other things going on.

[23:39] Lauren Gunderson: And part of it also is I find a lot of ways to sort of say the same thing, but it's less about plot complications.

[23:47] Lauren Gunderson: Um, oh, I have to win the prize to get the info to do the like who cares.

[23:53] Lauren Gunderson: Um it's that internal complexity.

[23:55] Lauren Gunderson: What what are they fighting internally?

[23:57] Lauren Gunderson: And all great characters are not just fighting an external battle, they're very much fighting one to a million internal battles.

[24:04] Lauren Gunderson: So what is going on in with a secret they're keeping from themselves, much less from the other characters in the play.

[24:09] Lauren Gunderson: Um so that uh and you know, when I when I feel like I'm ready to write, it's when I feel like the character there's so much going on and within within and without these characters that they sort of burst forth with a lot of uh that that's when the narrative starts to to go.

[24:27] Lauren Gunderson: Um the other thing about the gut instinct is uh is it funny?

[24:32] Lauren Gunderson: Like what what does it say beyond uh the specifics of the character?

[24:38] Lauren Gunderson: Like, are we talking about love?

[24:40] Lauren Gunderson: Are we talking about country?

[24:42] Lauren Gunderson: Are we talking about family, motherhood, um, sisterhood, whatever?

[24:47] Lauren Gunderson: Um, what what's the kind of larger philosophical or spiritual um conversation you want to have?

[24:55] Lauren Gunderson: Because even asking yourself that starts to imbue and infuse big ideas into your the specifics of your characters.

[25:03] Lauren Gunderson: Um, because I don't think theater is a place to just talk about what it's talking about.

[25:07] Lauren Gunderson: It's always talking about seven other things.

[25:10] Lauren Gunderson: And um just sort of opening up that part of your brain will will allow you to speak more to what that is.

[25:17] Jennifer Apple: What about for the collaborations, the adaptations, the things that have already been created that now you are tasked to reinvent or reinvigorate or repurpose?

[25:27] Lauren Gunderson: Adaptations I love.

[25:28] Lauren Gunderson: I love an adaptation.

[25:30] Lauren Gunderson: Um why?

[25:31] Lauren Gunderson: Uh part of it is because it is a comfort and a challenge for an audience if you do it right.

[25:38] Lauren Gunderson: They're gonna come in because it's little women, because it's Peter Pan, because it's Pride and Prejudice, and then we're gonna say, like, we're gonna give you that, I promise.

[25:46] Lauren Gunderson: But if you do the adaptation right, you have to have a point of view, you have to have a reason to tell this story anew right now.

[25:53] Lauren Gunderson: Um and so every one of my adaptations has a very clear sense of why me, why this classic, and why this way, why adapt it this way?

[26:04] Lauren Gunderson: Um and uh, and so then you get to do two things at once.

[26:08] Lauren Gunderson: You get to give the audience a sort of uh an easy ticket purchase, like that will help theaters because people buy things they know.

[26:15] Lauren Gunderson: Uh, and you get something new.

[26:17] Lauren Gunderson: And so we're gonna give you Pride and Prejudice, but yeah, we're gonna bump up that uh, you know, pump pump up the feminism.

[26:22] Lauren Gunderson: Um, you're gonna get your swoon, you're gonna get your Mr.

[26:25] Lauren Gunderson: Darcy, but we're also gonna give you a very vivacious Lizzie and perhaps a vivacious Jane.

[26:29] Lauren Gunderson: Like maybe we're gonna go a little farther with her than you have before.

[26:32] Lauren Gunderson: Um, same with little women.

[26:33] Lauren Gunderson: We're gonna talk about um it's not just like ladies in petticoats by the fire.

[26:39] Lauren Gunderson: This is this is crazy ass girls during a civil war fighting for their freedom, their family, their um artistic ambition, each other.

[26:50] Lauren Gunderson: Uh, they are fully realized human beings.

[26:52] Lauren Gunderson: How full can we give them?

[26:54] Lauren Gunderson: Um so I I it just also feels like what theater does best, which is sort of a handshake across time when you're adapting something.

[27:02] Lauren Gunderson: Like, I'm gonna take Louisa Mayalcott and be like, Hi five, love you.

[27:06] Lauren Gunderson: Uh we're gonna bring you with us over here to this current moment in time.

[27:11] Lauren Gunderson: And uh, how freaking cool, love to have you.

[27:13] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, um, so I just I I love it very much.

[27:17] Lauren Gunderson: And um, yep.

[27:19] Jennifer Apple: When you get them, is it usually with the or I guess it's a twofold question of like, do you go after the ones that you're like, this is something that I know I can adapt in this kind of way, only I can do it, or is it and or the like they come to you because they know at this point your breath of work and you're like, hmm, I have to sit with this because I haven't thought about adapting this yet, and I now need to find my way in.

[27:42] Lauren Gunderson: But the two big adaptations um were the latter, where it was somebody saying, Hey, I know your work, or the former, I don't know which one it was it.

[27:49] Lauren Gunderson: Um, this feels like something that you should do and can do well, which is such a compliment to begin with.

[27:57] Lauren Gunderson: Um the Peter Pan adaptation was that where at first I was like, Oh no, I'm not touching that one.

[28:02] Lauren Gunderson: And then they're like, but we want you to fix it.

[28:05] Lauren Gunderson: So uh uh yes, and it was quite fun.

[28:07] Lauren Gunderson: I'm super super proud of that one.

[28:09] Lauren Gunderson: Um and Little Women was sort of similar, that there wasn't an uh an adaptation that felt um right for some of these theaters.

[28:18] Lauren Gunderson: And in fact, they thought I already had one.

[28:20] Lauren Gunderson: That's my favorite story about Little Women was like, Can I read your little women adaptation?

[28:23] Lauren Gunderson: I was like, what what adaptation?

[28:25] Lauren Gunderson: And they're like, Oh, you don't have one.

[28:26] Lauren Gunderson: I was like, I it is on brand.

[28:28] Lauren Gunderson: It does seem like I should.

[28:29] Lauren Gunderson: So I do understand why you wouldn't think that.

[28:31] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and that led to this really cool um partnership between four major regional theaters to adapt it together, and they all sort of get to call it a world premiere and they all help me develop it and help each other produce it.

[28:43] Lauren Gunderson: Um, it's really, really cool. So that that one yes came out of that space.

[28:45] Lauren Gunderson: And then I get to sort of talk not just about the characters in the novel, but really Louise May Alcott and what a wild-hearted, incredible woman she was.

[28:57] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and sort of contrary to what we might think of the person who wrote Little Women, like she was not very sweet and girly and sort of didn't want to write the book.

[29:06] Lauren Gunderson: She was like, a book about girls, ugh, right? Why? That love makes me love her instantly to be like, oh, I see you. I love that.

[29:14] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so that was that adaptation. But then sometimes some of the other adaptations are just like because I love it.

[29:22] Lauren Gunderson: And then you're prompting that on your own, which is like, I see this and I want to make it mine, or what not?

[29:27] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, and sort of a combination of yeah, having an instinct about what the American theater needs uh and and wants um, what audience members are will buy.

[29:41] Lauren Gunderson: Um, not to keep mentioning the buying, but we're in such a tenuous moment right now with so many American theaters to try to align ways in which the theater, the audience, and the artist can actually hear and speak for and work with each other to support each other.

[29:55] Lauren Gunderson: So we want to give something that's meaningful to the audiences. Audiences want to support more of this art form that they love.

[30:01] Lauren Gunderson: And the institutions are in, and the grantors are sort of in this interim space to help make the art, support the art, but we're all still struggling in so many ways.

[30:12] Lauren Gunderson: So trying to align artistic instincts with the best versions of new and classic things that can be born at this time is important.

[30:21] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. What about the musical land of it all? Where, you know, uh the coming to a piece that again is perhaps the adaptation, but now you're adding a whole new element to it.

[30:32] Jennifer Apple: Or like tell me more about this part of your creative craft.

[30:37] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, I mean, I um I never thought I would write musicals when I first started.

[30:42] Lauren Gunderson: And I love them so much because of the collaboration, because of how the handoff between song and scene work um and the conversations.

[30:53] Lauren Gunderson: It it's it's a uh musicals are an even more structured art form than plays uh because of how uh how the form has evolved uh to you need a song every so often, you need the song that does this before the song that does this.

[31:09] Lauren Gunderson: You have to calculate how many ensemble numbers versus duets versus solos, what are reprises how do reprises function?

[31:15] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and so it it I just love it. It feels like the ultimate puzzle um and like ultimate group project.

[31:24] Lauren Gunderson: Um so yeah, it's and that's a combination of adaptations, which are easy to um make into musicals because we're very used to that.

[31:34] Lauren Gunderson: It's a movie, it's a book, you adapt it. The audience again knows what they get, but they get it some songs with it.

[31:39] Lauren Gunderson: Um I'm happy for those projects. I like those projects, but the original musicals are the real, right the real excitement and um those uh can range from just big crazy ideas to people who've uh brought ideas to me um uh we'd love you know you to write this book or to take a new pass on this book uh which I love that too and what's what the interesting moment I'm in right now is I'm adapting a play of my own as as a musical so my play I and you Ari Afsar and I are adapting it as a musical and the McArthur theater is premiering it this fall um it's so exciting because it feels very like a new musical but it's also an adaptation of a play that is well enough known that people like oh yeah I know that which is still a delightful excitement for me as a writer to be like you do how really that's so cool.

[32:31] Lauren Gunderson: But to turn it into a musical has required such reinvestigation of a story that I sort of thought I was done with love and very proud of but it's sort of cracking it open again which is really fun.

[32:43] Lauren Gunderson: So I think it's it's just such a cool art form and I I also love that you can sort of take musicals with you in a way that plays don't really work in the same way just you the songs get in your brain and you can listen to them while you're working out or commuting and it sort of sticks around in a really um beautiful way that you know you don't really like read scenes in the car.

[33:05] Jennifer Apple: Yeah. How do you find your collaborating with the other folks in this goes?

[33:10] Jennifer Apple: Do you come in with like a hey how do you work this is how I work this is how we can work together.

[33:15] Jennifer Apple: Is it more like let's trial by fire this and see how it goes? Do you like divvy up the whatever divide and conquer and then you come together and see how they function, or do you like sit in your either metaphorical or literal rooms together, like let's do this together?

[33:29] Lauren Gunderson: I mean, the first draft is always sort of um uh outline-based. Let's sort of get the general sort of um pass at where songs might go, what might be songs, and then it always sort of changes.

[33:45] Lauren Gunderson: Sometimes we're like, Oh, we do not need a song there. That's actually better as a scene, or like maybe the scene's within the song, and we can kind of do both.

[33:52] Lauren Gunderson: Um a lot of it is sort of I I sort of lean on the idea of like, what do you want to write?

[33:58] Lauren Gunderson: Like, what's the thing? You're like, God, I can't wait to write that song, or oh, I can't wait to write that moment.

[34:02] Lauren Gunderson: Then like, do it, go there first. Let the let the joy lead.

[34:06] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and then that will sort of absorb and ricochet around the whole project if we if we lead with those things.

[34:15] Lauren Gunderson: So um that's sort of what I always want to ask my collaborators.

[34:19] Lauren Gunderson: Like, what are you dying to write? And then do it.

[34:22] Lauren Gunderson: And and then, you know, we know how play works and the musical works, and we'll put it together.

[34:26] Lauren Gunderson: We you know, we're gonna have to have the exposition here, and like I'll do that.

[34:30] Lauren Gunderson: Um yeah, but it's different with different people.

[34:34] Lauren Gunderson: Um, I have a process that sort of works until it doesn't work, which includes um, all right, here's a scene where she wants this and she wants that.

[34:45] Lauren Gunderson: And so I'm gonna write the kind of shitty monologue of what is behind this song, like the terrible, not artful, not subtle monologue where she says, Here are the things that are on my mind.

[34:55] Lauren Gunderson: I'm scared of this, I'm scared you'll say this. I want the fear of being rejected, but I also want you to say you love me, but I'm not sure if you feel it, and then the blah blah blah, and then yeah, give hand that as like this is what this moment needs.

[35:07] Lauren Gunderson: And and as long as there is uh some of the information is just in the bridge, she needs to realize that actually she's waiting for herself to admit that she deserves love, but whatever, you know, blah blah.

[35:16] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[35:17] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and then that's a writable song.

[35:19] Lauren Gunderson: Like nothing I wrote will go into that song, most likely.

[35:22] Lauren Gunderson: Maybe a word or maybe a phrase if I had one fanciful moment of decent writing.

[35:28] Lauren Gunderson: But mostly it's just here's what needs to happen in this song.

[35:31] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[35:32] Lauren Gunderson: And sort of thinking of songs, not as we're gonna stop the story and sing about love a little bit.

[35:38] Lauren Gunderson: Like, no, it's of course the character forwarding, the plot forwarding, the emotional forwarding of this moment.

[35:45] Lauren Gunderson: Like something needs to change in that song, or else it's just like, why are we singing?

[35:49] Lauren Gunderson: Um, so knowing that means that we can kind of start accomplishing things and yeah, yes, anding each other as it goes.

[35:56] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[35:57] Lauren Gunderson: I love how you're fearless, it sounds like I imagine there's moments where you're like, no, but you're fearless and being like, this is a shitty first moment, but I know that this is the F like the energy of it, so that we have something to work off of.

[36:08] Lauren Gunderson: You know, it's just like here's the vomit.

[36:10] Lauren Gunderson: This is a very rough version.

[36:12] Lauren Gunderson: We'll take what works and leave what doesn't, and we will find the thing that is off of this thing.

[36:17] Lauren Gunderson: But the fearlessness and like actually just like going and knowing what it is um is really um wonderful and incredible.

[36:24] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, and um I think many people no, but it's true.

[36:28] Jennifer Apple: I think many people struggle with that, myself included, at times where you're like, okay, well, it's not gonna come out the way I want it.

[36:33] Jennifer Apple: All right, well, you need to at least try the first time.

[36:36] Jennifer Apple: If you have an idea of what the thing is, yeah, you can't work from nothing.

[36:40] Jennifer Apple: You have to work from something.

[36:41] Jennifer Apple: And if this is the something in this moment, then you will see what is and what isn't, and you can go from there, and there's progress that can be made from it.

[36:47] Lauren Gunderson: So um, I think that's really cool that you're just like, here's the thing, let's not use any of it.

[36:53] Lauren Gunderson: But actually, we're using all of it, but none of it though.

[36:55] Jennifer Apple: Thank you.

[36:55] Lauren Gunderson: That's right.

[36:56] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[36:56] Lauren Gunderson: Like the whole, like, there's no bad idea.

[36:58] Lauren Gunderson: I mean, there are, but there aren't.

[37:00] Jennifer Apple: Yeah.

[37:00] Lauren Gunderson: Sometimes the bad idea is the step to like three steps away from like a really good idea that you wouldn't have gotten there if you hadn't been like, oh no, that's a terrible idea.

[37:09] Lauren Gunderson: But that makes me think of well, it's the idea to execution part of it.

[37:13] Lauren Gunderson: Like the idea maybe is a bad idea, but if you execute this thing in a really interesting, brilliant way that's very specific and answers all these questions, and like it actually might become something that's actually not just bad, I would hope.

[37:23] Jennifer Apple: Maybe I don't know.

[37:24] Lauren Gunderson: That's totally it.

[37:25] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[37:26] Lauren Gunderson: And so much of theater is that, you know.

[37:28] Jennifer Apple: Oh, very much.

[37:29] Lauren Gunderson: Um a lot of it.

[37:31] Lauren Gunderson: Um that's a whole other conversation that I don't know if we want to go down that path.

[37:34] Jennifer Apple: But I'm curious with that, knowing that you've been doing this for a hot second, how the industry has changed for obviously with people also knowing your work more, and there's like not like you superseding it, and but in some ways it's like you don't have to maybe put yourself in those rooms as aggressively because maybe people come to you a little bit more.

[37:52] Jennifer Apple: But how have you found, in addition to the, you know, theater landscape shifting, the needs of theaters perhaps changing in order to like actually put butts in seats in a very different kind of way?

[38:03] Jennifer Apple: Like, how have you found that the industry or the profession as a playwright has shifted?

[38:08] Jennifer Apple: And what have you been doing, I guess, to adapt or guide that for yourself in the process?

[38:14] Lauren Gunderson: Hmm.

[38:15] Lauren Gunderson: Um, I mean, I think we're still in such a sea change post-pandemic, and um and this new administration and its attacking of arts and gutting um all sorts of things that we had counted on.

[38:30] Lauren Gunderson: Um, even as tenuous as this career can be already.

[38:34] Lauren Gunderson: So I think there is um it to me, it's all about uh collaboration and partnerships, uh, and really sort of talking to to theater companies and theater leaders and really saying, What do you need?

[38:48] Lauren Gunderson: Um, there's the stuff that I want to write that I can't wait to write, uh, and I am very proud of those things that doesn't always align with what a theater is like.

[38:57] Lauren Gunderson: I have to have a show that can sell to this audience, that can speak to this thing, that can compliment these other things.

[39:04] Lauren Gunderson: And both of those are worthy of this art form.

[39:07] Lauren Gunderson: So, yes, I'm gonna write my absolutely bonkers, gritty uh feminist AI play that like no one is asking for, and I'm so proud of it.

[39:18] Lauren Gunderson: And oh my god, it's one of my best plays.

[39:20] Lauren Gunderson: But that is not the thing that you're gonna put on every season, um, you know, in the Christmas slot.

[39:26] Lauren Gunderson: Not gonna happen.

[39:27] Lauren Gunderson: Not that one.

[39:28] Lauren Gunderson: Um both of them will get written, whatever I would write to serve that.

[39:33] Lauren Gunderson: And uh, but so kind of knowing, I I think that's part of what it is is knowing that there are times when I get to do sort of one for me and one for the curious artist in me that is so desperate to push the form and to push myself.

[39:48] Lauren Gunderson: Um and then there's the one that knows, like, I know what you want.

[39:51] Lauren Gunderson: I got you.

[39:51] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, I will give you this thing.

[39:53] Lauren Gunderson: It will be smart, it will be feminist.

[39:56] Lauren Gunderson: Um, it will also be welcoming to a lot of audiences.

[39:59] Lauren Gunderson: It will be easy to sell.

[40:02] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and uh it will be a thing that people walk away feeling really glad that they came to the theater.

[40:08] Lauren Gunderson: Those two can exist absolutely together.

[40:11] Lauren Gunderson: Um, they'll probably on different assignments and perhaps different theater companies, but I love this art form so much, and frankly, I'm damn good at it, so that I can know which one are we doing?

[40:24] Lauren Gunderson: Which what and the more you tell me about what you need, um, I can make the version that feels perhaps softer.

[40:32] Lauren Gunderson: Uh, I can still make it smart as hell, and I still make it funny and cool.

[40:36] Lauren Gunderson: Um, but I I know the assignment.

[40:38] Lauren Gunderson: I I got it, got it.

[40:39] Lauren Gunderson: Um, and it's good work to keep that theater going more to make money for that theater and that community and that community of artists.

[40:46] Lauren Gunderson: Love, love that job.

[40:47] Lauren Gunderson: Love it.

[40:48] Jennifer Apple: Um, and also, hell yeah, I'm gonna write the weird shit.

[40:51] Lauren Gunderson: I think it's great.

[40:52] Jennifer Apple: No, but it's really cool that you know that you know a how to do that within your own brain of like when I'm writing this project, it needs to fulfill these external things besides just the craft, and also within yourself to know that like just because you're doing that doesn't mean that you would diminish this other part of yourself that clearly has other things to be saying.

[41:11] Jennifer Apple: Do you when you are saying you know, writing a piece very specifically for a theater's needs, and then you have this incredibly goofy AI moment that I cannot rate to wait to read.

[41:20] Jennifer Apple: Like, are you writing these simultaneously because it's fulfilling both in you, or do you compartmentalize a little bit more because you have to give your effort and energy?

[41:28] Lauren Gunderson: Um I'm always writing more than seven things.

[41:32] Lauren Gunderson: Uh there's there's always a ton of things happening.

[41:34] Lauren Gunderson: Now it depends on the moment.

[41:36] Lauren Gunderson: Like if I'm in that two or three week push, then that's all I'm doing for that two or three weeks.

[41:41] Lauren Gunderson: But once we move into, okay, we've got the draft, now we're in a workshop, now we're doing that first read, or um, or other things.

[41:48] Lauren Gunderson: There's like I can be editing or going deeper into a draft.

[41:52] Lauren Gunderson: Um, I sort of can't be writing plays at the same moment in their development at the same time.

[41:59] Lauren Gunderson: Like I can't both be starting two new plays or both be in the sort of investigative, interrogative, like tear it all apart, put it back together sort of moment.

[42:07] Lauren Gunderson: I sort of have to do those one at a time, but I can have one starting, one interrogating, one editing, one post-workshop, being like, how do I, you know, the fine-tuning?

[42:15] Lauren Gunderson: I can do all of that um at once, and sort of have to these days because of how fast things are moving at this particular moment with different stuff, which is a fabulous and problem to have that I'm very grateful for for that particular stress.

[42:28] Lauren Gunderson: It's really cool and wild that your brain is able to balance all of these things simultaneously and get as deep as you do with all of them and into each person's head.

[42:37] Jennifer Apple: But I think that's yeah, it's like why you're brilliant.

[42:40] Lauren Gunderson: Have you been using the same monologue for years? Are you gearing up to apply for BA, BFA, or MFA programs and need pieces for that process?

[42:47] Jennifer Apple: Or maybe you just have no idea where to even start with monologue hunting. I get it. And that's why I offer monologue sourcing. This is a unique process where I find monologues chosen specifically for you. So many artists pick pieces based on external labels like type or for roles rather than finding material that represents who they truly are. So here's how it works. We'll meet virtually and you'll share all about who you are, your passions, values, beliefs, and everything in between. Don't worry, I will help guide you through this process. Then I'll get to work finding monologues that fit you like a glove with years of experience sourcing pieces for hundreds of artists. I've seen the difference it makes to have a monologue that genuinely feels like you.

So if you want to feel empowered about the monologues you bring into rooms and use for auditions, I would love to help you find them. And because you're a listener of the Empowered Artist Collective Podcast, I'm offering an exclusive rate. Head to EmpoweredArtistCollective.com/slash podcast promo to register and claim the special offer. That's EmpoweredArtistCollective.com/slash podcast promo. I cannot wait to help you find monologues you absolutely adore.

[43:57] Jennifer Apple: Now though, you are beginning to insert yourself as a performer into your own work. And I know that you had kind of mentioned in the beginning, like that was arguably like why you had started writing to like let's find roles or whatever that aren't existing that I would want to be in. And then maybe you took the path away from that for a hot second, but revisiting. Why has this now been the moment for you? And how has it been? And is that changing your writing? Is that changing the pro like what is that?

[44:22] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah. I mean, it sort of happened accidentally, um, at first of sort of reading, subbing in for some actors in my own plays and workshops, and then clocking over the last couple of years, like, ooh, I mean, obviously, if you're in it, you're learning um things as a writer that um there's just way more efficient and apparent when you're saying the words yourself and in those roles. Um, and it's not just for the role I was reading, that's the discovery. I was uh just being aware internally of all the other stories happening in the one story that I wrote. Um so it just started to function in a really helpful um way and became another tool I can use to sort of get into the rewrites deeper, quicker and faster.

Um, and then some of the plays that I'd done um for myself, knowing that I wasn't gonna really do the performance of them, but the development. Um, and then this new one, it's called Musifier. It's a two-hander about Will and Ann Shakespeare realizing that so much of what I want, why I wanted to write is because like I wanted to hang out with William Shakespeare and be like, hey, so a couple questions. Um and that really um really changed the writing of it. And because it's a two-hander and I'm one of the actors, now I'm in half the damn play. And there's but which really means you're in the whole play because there's nowhere else to go. Um so the effectiveness of being actor-writer um was just profound on that one. So I'm sort of obsessed with this at this point. Uh and not just the play, but this process.

[45:56] Lauren Gunderson: Uh and it works because I have someone I work with um who is an awesome writer's assistant and sort of like little brother or bestie um who can uh monitor and help me um when it's like actor Lauren versus writer Lauren notes um and how to sort of capture things if I'm on stage so that writer Lauren can later go back and and um but also capturing honestly the the lines I mess up and write something that's perhaps or uh not write something, but say something that's perhaps better, and I'll be like, oh, write that down. Um or the sort of improvisational stuff that uh is more apparent and effective when I'm writer-actor. So there's a ton of discoveries. It feels like a whole new level that I'm I'm hitting, which is really really great.

And yeah, I mean, again, as you said, I started there, so it's no surprise that this is sort of coming back at this moment to be a profound part of um writing a different kind of play. Uh the super emotional ones do feel like this is gonna serve me well to do this this way.

[47:01] Jennifer Apple: Amazing. How have you found that you can separate these identities now while you're in it? Like, you know, it's it is different when you're like, okay, I'm an actor in this thing and now I'm feeling all this stuff that maybe feels really cathartic for me to be experiencing, but it's not actually serving the larger part of the play, or how do you set how are you yeah, sussing that out?

[47:19] Lauren Gunderson: I mean, it for me it's a larger like the actor knows things that the writer doesn't. And so if there's an emotional thing that's happening um as an actor, that's a great note for the writer that maybe that that turn into this next phase of the play needs to happen a little later like we gotta this right the actor isn't wrong um to have this feeling there um and uh if the actor is wrong it's just a you need to you need to keep all that emotion but zip it up fight against it don't give it away yet zip it up which is way better for drama anyway it's not about the crying it's about the holding back um so like how to how they can both teach each other so writer Lauren is like I know you want to feel that right here you're gonna need to feel it in a page and a half so zip it up keep it um but then actor Lauren can be like all right writer Lauren I need like three more lines to get to this moment if you want this feeling and so playing with that is that's again why the rewriting is so effective because the internal stuff um but it requires a lot of trust the director that I'm working with um Evernochikan is a longtime friend and sort of knows me really really well so he can be like I'm gonna talk to writer Lauren for a second I'm gonna talk to actor for a second um but the team is really great my writer's assistant Nick and co-star Casey we all sort of have this trust that's built in to sort of support each other knowing that this is a bit strange um this this form I mean it's not unheard of of course lots of people are in their own work but it's uh it's it's been really great and I kind of can't wait to make more things in this with this model.

[48:48] Jennifer Apple: I love it. Um are you somebody who wants to stick exclusively to theater and the way theater can do things or what are your thoughts about um the on camera worlds of it all and your journey with that?

[48:49] Lauren Gunderson: I haven't done a ton of it. I s I got into doing animation uh screenplays. So I had done a couple of those, which have been really fun. Um I'm honestly just so busy in the theater, it's a it's sometimes hard to make room. Um, but I have some of my very best friends are incredible, super powerful, super successful Hollywood folks now. So if they ever called, I would absolutely drop things to work with them. But I'm sort of not necessarily running to that. Apart w younger, I was obsessed. I was like, why I haven't done TV. I have to do TV. I'm a terrible playwright if I don't do TV. And then a friend of mine was like, mm, I would say like, don't have that pressure uh or that that definition because you don't need it.

Like the theater is where I always want to always want to be in a rehearsal room and theater you can make so quickly. So I can make 10 plays in the time it takes to make one movie. Um and to to have so many ideas in so many phases, it works in the theater in that way. So I'm grateful for it.

[49:59] Jennifer Apple: I love that. Um, what about your podcast? Why did you start it? And how does it feel to have it as this supplementary arm to the process and has it taught you anything while you're doing it?

[50:11] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, oh I love it. Um it's called How to Play, right? Um, it is it's just sort of my like rambly, I don't really have a plan of what I'm gonna talk about. I mean, I have a theme. Um, but sort of going through the big stuff. And I it it was a compliment because I really enjoyed during the pandemic um uh opening up it was like Facebook Live, I think was the form, but uh where I just started saying, like, all right, let's talk about plays and we can get together live and it'll obviously record it. And it just became this wonderful community that felt so so exciting and vivacious, and I wanted to bring that back in some way. I don't know why it felt right to do. Sometimes I just do things and it's it's good.

[50:49] Lauren Gunderson: You don't wait for the petition. No, why can't happen? So short. Um, so I just love it. And I I I really also sort of feel very um, I love the mechanisms of it and the sort of science of an art form because it seems like it shouldn't, they shouldn't talk to each other, but they do. Uh and yeah, I I just I I love it. I'm gonna eventually start talking about each particular play, like some of the more popular plays and sort of how those were made and why I think they work. I know that's what people sort of want to know. It's like, but how, but how? How does this one why is this one this way? And so I'll I'll go into that. But yeah, if I had more time, that is what I would be doing. I'd be like, all right, tell me about this though, and this moment and how and why.

[51:31] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, but like, you know, no one needs me to be nerding out and be like, uh, Jennifer, we we need to know more just generally here. I'll be like, okay, thank you so much. Uh come back to another point.

[51:44] Jennifer Apple: Yeah, literally that though. Why is this a dash and not a semi-colon?

[51:49] Lauren Gunderson: Oh, you're my person. Yes. Yes, though, but she loves a reason.

[51:54] Jennifer Apple: Oh, truly, that's a punctuation. I am the punctuation will I'm like, this isn't an arbitrary moment. This was a choice. No, honor it. Thank you.

[52:03] Lauren Gunderson: Thank you. Um, I mean, I I'm just grateful for this community and uh feeling like the more we can talk about how we do things, why we do things, it sort of takes down the this forced either separation or or competition. Um that is oddly built into this form, even though we cannot compete because actors are so different from each other and plays are so different from me. They cannot actually be compared. Um so finding the true heart through this this tenuous time in the American theater or in Broadway's sort of figuring out how the hell to to make money to sustain new work to support, you know, wild new ideas. The only way we get through that is by being big fans of each other and coming out for each other and saying, you know, I will support this production, this artist, this yeah, you know, so I I'm grateful for folks like you who see that and the connective threads of everybody being the strongest thing we have.

[53:05] Lauren Gunderson: And sort of the reason why we do this at all, like we don't do it alone, we can't do it alone. So yeah.

[53:10] Jennifer Apple: Um, yeah. So I that's all. Thank you.

[53:12] Lauren Gunderson: No, thank you. I mean, it's uh again, like it's why like you're in this space. I mean, obviously, like, you know, there's connective tissue around like who you've worked with and who I know who knows you and whatever, whatever, like all of that. Like there's like, okay, well, clearly if these people are in the mix, then like, yes, this is the right, this is a this is a person that I I feel connected towards.

[53:32] Jennifer Apple: But I but you're mentioning literally shout out to Alex. If you haven't listened to Alexei's episode, you should. We live.

[53:38] Lauren Gunderson: Um and you're mentioning something though that like truly is of my ethos. Like I really I do not believe that somebody else's quote unquote success like takes away from me. Again, like I've said this on so many different episodes of just like if a person in my sphere has some sort of success, which again is like a nebulous word, what does that even mean? But if they do, then this means that the people in the world are recognizing people that I love and value, their work and ethic and and more like that's amazing. It's bringing the people that I love to like a step closer to the thing, the work that's being done that I like everybody's winning.

[54:09] Jennifer Apple: And I just it's also like there are enough, there's enough space. Like there is enough. We're just told that there isn't. Um, and why not like show people who people are and the work that they do and showcase that? Like it just it seems so antithetical to like what we're actually doing.

[54:24] Lauren Gunderson: So I'm just echoing and signing and stamping right next to what you just said. It's just that's yeah.

[54:29] Jennifer Apple: So thank you like so much for being in this space and for the breadth of work that you have introduced into the American theatrical canon that is actually changing the landscape and making people think and discover and explore and question and um rethink. And I it's just your work is really awesome, and I cannot wait to read this AI piece and see you performing um on a stage within your own work and all of it. It's just really exciting.

[55:06] Lauren Gunderson: Yes, can't wait to hear the less the rest of the episodes, and thank you for watching.

[55:10] Jennifer Apple: Yes. Yes. If anybody wants to reach out, hire you, commission you, read your stuff, where within your boundaries is the best way for people to do so?

[55:20] Lauren Gunderson: Ooh, um, I'm sort of an Instagram girly, so you can always sort of find me there to actually chat about things, but you know, always down to hang out at the drama bookshop. Love uh my plays are always in stock there. Um yeah, I don't know. Podcast, you can just hear me ramble, but Instagram, we can interact. And um, yeah, buy a ticket to not just my place, any play, but certainly if you see mine out there, give it a shot. Sometimes I'm involved in those productions, sometimes I'm not, but I'm always supporting from afar.

[55:53] Jennifer Apple: I love it. Thank you so much for being here.

[55:55] Lauren Gunderson: Thank you, what a dream.

[55:56] Jennifer Apple: That's it for today's episode. I hope you walk away with some fresh insights, feel inspired and a little more empowered to take the next step on your artistic journey. Remember, whether it's a small shift or a big breakthrough, every step forward counts. You've got this, and we're here cheering you on every step of the way. If you found today's episode helpful, don't forget to hit subscribe so you'll never miss out on the discussions we have each week. And if something today really resonated with you, please leave us a review. It truly is one of the best ways to help other artists find our podcast and join in on the conversations. Plus, we feel the love too when you do. And don't keep all this goodness to yourself.

Share this episode with your people or post about it on social media. Be sure to tag @EmpoweredArtistCollective and @JenniferApple_ so we can see what's landing for you and keep the conversation going. As always, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being a part of this incredible community. Keep creating, keep thriving, stay empowered. I'm Jennifer Apple. Until next time.