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[0:06] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's Theater Podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with the stars and creators of the hottest shows on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond.

[0:16] Gordon Cox: I'm your host, Gordon Cox.

[0:19] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to Lauren Gunderson. The prolific writer is, after Shakespeare, the most produced playwright in the country this year, 2019, according to the annual survey conducted by American Theatre Magazine. It's the second time she's at the top of that list, and when she's not at the top, she's usually somewhere not much farther down. But if you live in New York City, there's a decent chance you've never seen a play by Lauren Gunderson, because while her work is performed all over the country, she's carved out her impressive career largely without New York, where productions of her work are rare. But this winter, New Yorkers have the chance to check out Gunderson's work with The Half-Life of Marie Curie, now playing off Broadway in a production that stars Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faradini, and produced by Audible, which will also release an audio adaptation of the play on its audiobook platform. Gunderson's in the studio with me to talk science, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and how she's proving that New York isn't the only place to be a successful playwright.

[1:16] Gordon Cox: Hi, Lauren, thanks for joining me.

[1:17] Lauren Gunderson: Thanks so much.

[1:18] Lauren Gunderson: What a fun.

[1:19] Gordon Cox: So tell me, what is the official count of the number of plays you have written? Because you have many, many under your belt at this point.

[1:24] Lauren Gunderson: I I don't actually know. I think it's probably two-ish dozen.

[1:32] Lauren Gunderson: That's what it seems like. It's more than twenty appears to be definite.

[1:35] Lauren Gunderson: I think that is correct.

[1:40] Gordon Cox: Um don't. You must write very fast. Is there how do you do that? Is that through a schedule? Is that through a Um Do you have like a word count per day or something?

[1:49] Lauren Gunderson: No, I don't I don't really keep track of it like that. I mean I uh I what do I do? I get up as early as I can, um, and I work really hard for the first couple hours of the day, and I think after like one or two p.m I'm a little useless.

[2:02] Gordon Cox: Right.

[2:02] Lauren Gunderson: But you know it's all problem solving for me. So it's seeking out the corner of the story or the massive chunk depending on the play and the problem of the of the play.

[2:13] Gordon Cox: Right.

[2:13] Lauren Gunderson: Um and really trying to like find to to hone in. And once I hone in I can focus on that problem and I I tend to solve it pretty quickly but that's kind of the general churn of the writing.

[2:26] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And also part of that churn is just the number of ideas you seem to have where do you have a standard answer for where you get your ideas and where they come from.

[2:35] Lauren Gunderson: I mean it depends on the kind of category of show. I I write a lot of history a lot of science history a lot of feminist history and there is really no end to those amazing undiscovered uh parts of history that I would love to see on stage and see be brought to life. So this is why it's almost dangerous for me to read biographies because it's two pages in and I think oh my god this is a play um but yes and then sometimes it's um uh I mean everything lines that I overhear in the subway or um amazing pieces of art or music or sometimes it's a feeling that I haven't I haven't seen that feeling put on stage or a complex kind of a person with a I don't know some complexity in a person or a time or whatever.

[3:23] Gordon Cox: Is there a play that you've can you name one of your plays that was writ inspired by a feeling?

[3:23] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah um so my play exit pursued by a bear, which is a couple no uh a couple years old now, is this combination of rage and devotion? Um it's about a domestic abuse survivor who is ridding herself of her husband finally with the help of this elaborate, strange, farcical plot with her two best friends, one of whom is a stripper, um set in North Georgia, um, where I'm I'm from Georgia. So it was this weird, and I knew the tone of the play was gonna be weird, but it was it was trying to what is that thing where you love what you hate and you need what you don't want, um, and you are braving that uh with courage enough to to save yourself. Um so it came out of that.

[4:14] Gordon Cox: A lot of your plays have uh, or a number anyway, have had sort of rolling premieres um through the National New Play Network. So you get to see them like three separate times. How much how much of watching the play with an audience through that process influences the kind of work you do on the play as it goes along?

[4:29] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, um a lot of it is still is my own barometer. I think if I if I hear an audience reaction in one place and I change it and hear another and it's different, and the only thing I know is is my aesthetic and my sense of what's funny and what's good and what's meaningful. So I try to kind of, you know, of course, you you are moved by the the reactions around you, but I try to average it out and mostly use myself as as a guidepost. But I will say I love in NPN so much. I think it's the best idea in the last couple decades in American theater because of what it gives writers.

[5:01] Gordon Cox: What is your aesthetic? You just mentioned your aesthetic. Do you have a can you characterize it?

[5:05] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, um, again, it a little bit depends on the play because it does kind of morph and shift when I'm writing a farce or a historical drama or something contemporary. But I um I think it is brainy people uh with great passion. Both of those adjectives means that they go fast, think fast, decide fast, um, face consequences fast. So there is a an energy, a pace that you just hopefully can't look away from because of what's next, what are they gonna do, what will become of them. And that's combined with a uh a bit of uh a lot of humor and a lot of kind of wackiness. Um people that have uh I don't know that people that like laugh at their own jokes. I think that maybe my own personal aesthetic for my life. And also, of course, plays into my plays. So yes, yes. So something like that.

[6:01] Gordon Cox: And you started to sort of allude to this. A lot of your plays deal with uh people who are scientists and they talk sort of science scenes, like you seem to love science. Has that always been true? And at what point did you realize that science and playwriting weren't diametrically opposed?

[6:09] Lauren Gunderson: I mean honestly I learned that super early. It's one of the reasons why I think I wanted to write plays was actually science. Part of which is uh Copenhagen and Arcadia, yes, both of those plays. Um when I was kind of uh young in theater, but knew I really wanted to do it and was starting to investigate what is this thing? How do you think that's it? And when what part in your development was this? Was this high school or yeah, yeah.

[6:38] Lauren Gunderson: I I luckily learned pretty early that I loved theater. And this was in kindergarten when I knew I I loved it. I didn't know exactly what I that I wanted to be a writer until a couple of years later, but still that's middle school. So how lucky am I to know early enough that I want to do this? Um and so in high school, and I was really kind of uh exploring the the world of wordcraft, um, those plays were very popular. So it gave me a big old spotlight on yes, you can write um fiercely intelligent people and things and be creative structurally, um, and all that stuff that still marks marks my work now. But I will say when I was in high school, I knew I wanted to write but I didn't know about what would you want to write.

I'm you know no one in particularly that I'm I'm no one that's particularly special um so I don't have this you know life story that's traumatic and needs to be on stage. So I as soon as I discovered the stories of science and the stories of history I thought well there there you go that's drama and science in particular um more than just general history uh because it has this human-sized moment where everything changes and that to me is the crux of the most gripping moments in theater is where with some decision, some one action that is human-sized things change. Um and we get to be in the room with them as they have these ideas or this proof is realized or you know the bravery of a new experiment is is uh is started. So I I've I've always loved it.

[8:09] Gordon Cox: And how often do you think about you've said in interviews you've talked about uh a couple of your plays draw on Jane Austen and Christmas which A sounds really fun and B sounds like the savviest sort of sales move because everybody loves Jane Austen. Everybody every theater needs a new Christmas play because they're tired of Christmas Carol. Like how how much does that sort of your understanding of what theaters want what audiences want play into the kinds of uh subjects you explore and write about it?

[8:27] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah the Miss Pina plays were particular uh were particularly an answer to to a question that every theater asks itself. Um and my writing partner, Margo Melcon, um was worked on the kind of the other side. She is a literary manager and literary dramaturg. Um and so worked with me on a lot of plays before we started writing together. And then it was in a conversation as we were driving up to actually Ashland, Oregon Shakespeare Theatre Vest. Yeah, of course. And had this conversation about like God, I'm so tired. From San Francisco. From San Francisco. How long of a drive? I was like, it's five five and a half hours. Okay. Okay. That's right. Maybe six and a half. Somebody's gonna correct me.

Anyway, yes, long enough where we had to like we could have some long conversations, and we posed ourselves this question, and Marg was like, What about Jane Austen? I was like, that's a great idea. I wonder we could do well, you know, she the other sisters don't aren't don't get much play in the books. Oh my god, oh my god, there's so many sisters. We just a lot of sisters, right? Yeah.

[8:58] Lauren Gunderson: And then it was what you exactly said at the beginning, which is it's a lot of fun. It's a play that uh it's very well welcoming play. So everybody uh the first place called Miss Bennett.

[9:43] Gordon Cox: Miss Bennett Chris.

[9:44] Lauren Gunderson: No, the second yeah, the second one is called Christmas of Pemberley, no. It is Miss Bennett Christmas at Pemberley, okay, great. And then the second is the Wickham's Christmas of Pemberley.

[9:51] Lauren Gunderson: Christmas of Pemberley. We have a theme. So many Christmases, so much Pemberley. Um so yeah, I mean it was it was uh a a we kind of reversed engineered a show that we wish we'd had growing up, um, and one that can put frankly a hell of a lot of women on stage. We insist that directors um and casting directors focus on a diversity and an inclusive cast, so it's not just the British White People parade. Right, um, which is made for the most warm feelings when it's about this time when these plays start being launched. The Wickham's just launched in Chicago at Northlight. Right. Um, and uh so we get to see these just array of photos of the most wonderful actors um all across the country. Uh and every year it's kind of my Christmas present.

These photos of all these beautiful women in beautiful costumes and they're all they're together. Um so yes, that that show has been um I think understandably successful because people are looking for something that has intelligence and heart, but is welcoming enough for audiences that you can do year-in-year again. And we're starting to see theaters now do Miss Bennett uh more than once, and then now we have Wickham's, and then we're writing a a third one that will complete our trailer.

[11:08] Gordon Cox: The trilogy, yeah.

[11:09] Gordon Cox: Um let's talk about the reason you are here in New York from uh San Francisco, The Half-Life of Marie Marie Curie, which is uh having its world premiere at the Menena Lane Theater.

[11:18] Lauren Gunderson: Umdeed.

[11:18] Gordon Cox: Uh tell me where'd the idea for that come from?

[11:20] Lauren Gunderson: That was a commission from Audible, the producer that you told me.

[11:24] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, I mean I I write a lot about science and women and history, and everyone kind of goes, Where's your Marie Curie play?

[11:29] Lauren Gunderson: No, fair enough, yeah. The only female scientist people actually know by name, it's really her. So uh but it felt a little too obvious and but the truth was I didn't know I didn't have a way in. Um because she felt cold and distant and um unemotional and uncomplicated, and then of course, like a dummy, I just didn't read enough about her. And then diving in, the complexity of her life.

[11:55] Gordon Cox: What prompted you to dive in?

[11:56] Lauren Gunderson: Well, um I well, okay. So actually it was a Google Doodle. You know, when you go to Google Frother page and they have little doodles, their little pictures, and you click and it'll tell you what the heck that day was in history that was of interest. One of them was of Hertha Ayrton.

[12:11] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[12:11] Lauren Gunderson: Didn't know who she was. Yes, but she is the other character in the Half-Life of Marie Curie. She's indeed. Uh also a woman I'd never heard of until last night.

[12:18] Gordon Cox: Yes.

[12:18] Lauren Gunderson: Um most people haven't. Um, but sh in the little doodle, it looked like she was doing some manner of science. And I thought, I don't know who that is. I know all the lady scientists. Um and so I just did a little few clicks and found this incredible woman, British scientist, won the Hughes Medal, was an engineer and all these very interesting things. Was a fierce uh suffragist at that time. This is you know, turn of the century. Uh, and this one little um footnote mentioned her devoted friendship with Marie Curie. And I thought, well, so here we go. Now we have a very famous scientist and an unknown scientist who had a a female friendship, a mature female friendship. Both of them had daughters.

Um, both of them were, of course, you know, had cerved various versions of sexism and bias, um, of course, that we still go through now. And you know, it it so the the the real crux of the play started with what do we what do we not expect Marie Curie? Uh in what state do we not expect her to be when we meet her? And the answer was the state of Monica Lewinsky. Because truly, this moment in her time and time that the play is about, we find her in the middle of a sex scandal.

[13:34] Gordon Cox: Marie Curie.

[13:35] Lauren Gunderson: What? I'm sorry. So it is it was the most interesting thing to read, and then to see that her friend Hursa basically saved her life by saying, you know, let's get you out of France. This the press is being horrible to her, following her around, following her children around, writing the most terrible racist things about her sexist things, of course, all of this stuff about her. Um we find her at this this lowest point, and her friend is there to say, get out of here, come with me. Just come. And so she literally the true history is she kind of steals Marie Curie across the English Channel, um, using a pseudonym and like you know, with very kind of spy versus spy. And it truly is a story that is has become about two women. Um, and there's not a romance between them. It's that the other doesn't need something from the, you know, it's literally about how we save ourselves, how from how friends save us. So yeah.

[14:29] Gordon Cox: And at what point did Audible get involved? Did you had you had that idea before Audible started talking to you?

[14:34] Lauren Gunderson: Because this is part of a program that we should say Audible uh, you know, is producing plays that they are then uh recording for and releasing as uh I mean audiobooks, what will you call it when it's audio book and audio drama?

[14:46] Gordon Cox: Audio drama, radio play.

[14:48] Lauren Gunderson: And of course the British um are very familiar with radio plays and radio dramas. We are not over here, but that is a um a form that they know very well, and so it's it's quite interesting to to think about how it would change things for me. And I I actually do think that the Audible Commission program is pretty fascinating because if I were a kid, I grew up in right outside of Atlanta, Georgia, not the biggest theater town in the world, but I was so thirsty, as I mentioned, reading Copenhagen and Arcadia, and this program would have, I think, changed the course of my career because I would have been able to experience new plays in New York. Um I didn't go to New York till I was 16 or 17, so as a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, 14-year-old, I could have listened to these plays. So in that way, it kind of warms my heart a little bit to be involved in this project would have meant a lot to me as a kid.

[15:31] Gordon Cox: Did the fact that it is being recorded as an audio drama influence the way you conceived the play and what happened on stage?

[15:37] Lauren Gunderson: Yes, yeah. Um I realized very quickly that what I love most about theater are the silent moments. The glances and the urges, but you can't say anything, and what you're trying to hold back, or and a lot of that I thought was um not gonna work uh for a radio play, but in fact, you realize how much uh substance there is in silence. You can actually convey a lot, but it also meant that when we were given the opportunity to to stage it in this beautiful production, we could there's there's things on stage that you won't totally get in the in the radio version or the audible audible version um that you get to see in the play. And so I kind of like that it is a different play than it is an audio play, but it is also the same.

[16:19] Gordon Cox: And it will not be recorded with an audience, is that right?

[16:21] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, right. They recorded it in the booth, yeah.

[16:23] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah.

[16:24] Lauren Gunderson: Right. Yeah. But it's interesting. I mean, I will to answer your earlier question. The idea I'd been thinking about this, but it really was their um uh I I gave them a couple of ideas, and this is the one that they said immediately that one, that's the one we want. I can't wait, write it right right now. Um but it as all plays do, took the the pitch worked, but the play is different. And so I decided.

[16:47] Gordon Cox: How long look what how long does it take for you to write a play?

[16:50] Lauren Gunderson: About a year.

[16:51] Gordon Cox: Okay. Um, and that is how many plays are you working on at the same time?

[16:55] Lauren Gunderson: A lot. I mean, it it depends. I mean, I I can't work on new plays at the same time, like three new plays at the same time.

[17:03] Gordon Cox: Yeah, that makes sense.

[17:04] Lauren Gunderson: As long as they're in different phases. One that's on draft three, one that's very early, and I'm just kind of trying to figure out how to talk about it, one that's I'm fixing typos and doing rewrites um for production. So, you know, as long as they're staggered, I can kind of keep things in in my mind.

[17:19] Gordon Cox: Right. And this one is having its world premiere here in New York at the Minette Lane. What uh what's that like for you? You don't uh we you weirdly have not we have not seen a lot of your plays here in New York. So this is uh tell me about sort of what's a what's it like to talk about.

[17:31] Lauren Gunderson: It's awesome. I mean it's it's amazing. This company has the right people with the right uh passion for theater, the right aesthetic, and frankly the right resources to do a really kick guest job. I mean, Rachel Halko's doing our set.

[17:44] Gordon Cox: Right, right.

[17:45] Lauren Gunderson: Uh and GT Upchurch is directing and the the design team, the actors, Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Ferradani are works of art. I mean they're both excellent. They're both powerhouses. And so for me, it's writing a play that requires the best of of everything, and they're a company that can give you the best of everything. And and they really believe in it. And I think they're they're a bit disruptive because they're just kind of like, nope, we're just gonna make theater how we do it, which is we commission and we bring people in and we produce it and we record it, and that's how we do it.

[18:16] Gordon Cox: Right, yeah. So there's a kind of really interesting um attack uh on theater that I I really like.

[18:23] Lauren Gunderson: Have New York audiences struck you as at all different from yeah.

[18:27] Gordon Cox: I mean, I I I don't know if it's audiences or the people choosing the plays, or I mean both. They're obviously talking to one another. But I I will say I I find I don't see a lot of history plays in New York that aren't musicals. Um, you know, Dell South II being a uh an exception. But most of the time it's contemporary um or big musicals. And I of course love to write a history play more than anything. That that's been a really interesting thing, a slight intimidation because I'm bringing my history play to a city that doesn't do them very much. Um so I I hope that what people see in our show um has a contemporary feel. It's it's fast, it's juicy, it's emotional, it's kind of non-stop. Um, but they are a hundred years ago, and I kind of love that.

And the truth is the whole point of the play is it's the same sexism, the same hard work, the same bias in science, the same politics is now. So we we kind of really d I think GT directed the play with that kind of nonstop fierceness um for that reason.

[19:31] Lauren Gunderson: There for what I might argue to say most people there is this sort of conventional wisdom of you know how to be a successful playwright and that involves you live in New York and your first play gets done at you know I don't know a nonprofit one of the nonprofits and that then it sort of trickles out around the country from there and then you and I I feel like everyone in New York sort of believes that and you went to NYU for grad school, right? You saw your playwright in NYU. I feel like all your classmates and probably you yourself believed that at the time right like when did you start to think to realize that oh wait that's not the only way that this can happen.

[20:06] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah I don't know there was no grand plan for me. It was saying yes to crazy things that happened as they happened.

[20:13] Gordon Cox: And how did you end up in San Francisco? You've been in San Francisco for a while now.

[20:14] Lauren Gunderson: I said yes to a crazy thing. And that was it?

[20:18] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[20:18] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah basically I was kind of being driven west anyway worked a lot a lot with South Coast Rep and Oregon Chicks is out there and Marin Theater Company. Um and so Morin invited me out after uh my uh after graduating from NYU I had kind of a summer that included uh time at the O'Neill and a couple of different residencies and things and the last one was in San Francisco and man it's a gorgeous city and what a cool town full of amazing people strange complex politics.

[20:45] Gordon Cox: Um it should also be said that it's not like you chose a city that's cheaper to live in in than New York right? Because it is I mean I think San Francisco might be more expensive.

[20:53] Lauren Gunderson: It was a side step it was yeah basically a sidestep that's right. I think we compete for the most expensive I think that's right yeah but it's it's such an interesting thing because it feels more like Paris than New York. Um just the vibe of it, the uh the look of the city.

[21:09] Lauren Gunderson: Um and I I I liked that and I met uh who's now my husband and I found an incredible community of theaters who want to produce plays, not just work on on them. And so I I mean in one year, I've I've been there a couple years, three, four three years or so, and I had five world premiers in one year.

[21:30] Gordon Cox: That's astounding in San Francisco in one city.

[21:32] Lauren Gunderson: Right.

[21:32] Gordon Cox: What?

[21:33] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, yeah.

[21:33] Gordon Cox: Right. Excuse me.

[21:34] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[21:35] Gordon Cox: Wait, what?

[21:35] Lauren Gunderson: I almost don't want to say that because everyone's gonna be like, oh, I'm sorry, is that how it works in San Francisco? And it it was amazing, and and it was they were all very different plays at very different companies, and a city that can sustain that is.

[21:49] Gordon Cox: And so is this all over?

[21:50] Lauren Gunderson: This is in San Francisco itself, and then you said Marin, and then like there are a number of theaters south of the city as well.

[21:56] Gordon Cox: And of course Berkeley rep, um, and you know, it it is a deep community of of artists. And what I do love is we have some of my favorite theaters are like Crowded Fire Theater, which is small, new, diverse, um, has a real kind of punk rock theater aesthetic, and San Francisco Playhouse, which is um, you know, we'll do some stuff that New York has done, but now commissions a lot of new plays and they do musicals as well. And Marin Theater Company is kind of on the edge of um uh of new playwriting and new playwrights. Um and so it it really it's a fascinating town.

[22:32] Lauren Gunderson: So again, I there was no grand plan. It was kind of a beautiful accident. But so you moved there right after NYU was right.

[22:37] Gordon Cox: Right after, yeah, right after NYU.

[22:39] Lauren Gunderson: Um and found myself in this We are and writing a ton of plays because you Yeah, writing a lot of plays, and then people said yes to them, and then suddenly they're uh people were doing them. I don't know, it's crazy.

[22:50] Gordon Cox: Right.

[22:51] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah.

[22:57] Lauren Gunderson: It's that first week or two of rehearsal and on a new play where it is so collaborative and so generative and so iterative, and we're all just making this thing together. Um and that feeling of making a thing with people you respect is addictive, and I kind of am always craving that. So all of this work and the fastness of the process and the amount of ideas, I think is all in some ways serving getting me back in that room.

[23:27] Gordon Cox: And I imagine you must get a lot of questions from young aspiring playwrights who look at the amount of work you do and the amount of opportunity you have and just say, well, how did you do it? What is the advice that you tend to give an emerging playwright?

[23:42] Lauren Gunderson: Um, it is advice that I got. One is that writers write. So instead of thinking about writing or planning your writing or talking about how you one day will write, write. Um and that, however, you need to do that.

[23:55] Gordon Cox: Who told you that?

[23:55] Lauren Gunderson: My one of my mentors, Jim Grimsley, who's an amazing writer and novelist at Emory University. Um another Atlanta Georgia boy.

[24:02] Gordon Cox: And you went to college and you went to undergrad at Emory?

[24:04] Lauren Gunderson: I went to undergrad at Emory, yeah. Um writers write. And so that is what but what that technically what that means is get up every day and do it. You can write every day. Um if it sucks, delete it. If you don't want anyone to see it, scratch it out.

[24:18] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[24:18] Lauren Gunderson: Um, but you can and also what it makes you do is ask yourself, well, what should I write today? What is if I'm feeling blocked, if I'm feeling like I don't know what to do, what's the way around it? And sometimes it's writing something else, sometimes it's saying, let me just write a monologue for no reason about one of the minor characters in this play, and I bet that will unlock something, maybe make a whole new play. Um and the other thing is see as much theater as you can, read as much theater as you can, um, talk to people about it, find what you like about it. And you don't have to find what other people like about it. You can say, I like it. And the more you know what you like, then you can write what you like.

And the real secret is make plays that you want to see. Um, and then you're always gonna be on the right side of your own heart. Um, and they may be deeply commercially obvious and they may be totally obscure and strange, but you will love them, you want them to exist in the world.

[25:13] Gordon Cox: Um, so as long as that's your guidepost, uh, it should be fun to write.

[25:17] Lauren Gunderson: I actually I think my most guilty thing that I say is that I actually really like writing. I like the process of it, I like the puzzle solving of it, I like um the mysteries unlocked, fixing a thing, building a thing. I and I love that feeling actually. So I'm not one of those writers that likes to have written. I kind of love it, like, give me a problem, let's figure this out. Why is that not funny? Why is this not moving? Why that's just too long. Let's cut. What can we cut? How do we do it? The engineering and architecture of storytelling to me is just liberating and exciting and oof, I could talk about it all day.

[25:53] Gordon Cox: Is there a thing that you know now that you wish you knew back when you were starting out?

[25:57] Lauren Gunderson: Uh, dramatic structure.

[26:00] Gordon Cox: Which is a thing you taught yourself by doing it over and over again, or how did you learn? How did you come to learn it?

[26:05] Lauren Gunderson: Yes, by not doing it well or not knowing that I didn't know it. Um so when I went to NYU and my great friend and the amazing playwright and uh screenwriter and TV writer, Steve Yaqui, uh, who is basically my brother, um, he and I lived together here and he was he was the one who encouraged me. He went to NYU a year before me. But we know each other from Atlanta, and he was like dramatic structure, girl, I just learned it. This is amazing. This is the secret to all the things. And I was like, what are you talking about? Um so learning that, learning and you know, the beginning, middle end of things. Um, and it can sound a little anti-art sometimes because it sounds formulaic. It sounds like you just show up and you know uh the put in words uh to a form that already exists, and of course that's not it, but what it asks you to do is to be always aware that you are creating a journey.

[26:52] Gordon Cox: Right.

[26:52] Lauren Gunderson: And the journey isn't just go to a store, come home. Um it is the ups and downs. It's crafting that rise and the fall and earning and knowing that you're doing it. So it's not an accident that we get to the end and we care what Hamlet does in that last moment. It's not an accident. There's purpose to those decisions, purpose to when he does this and why he does this and how it causes this, and how it is inevitable that we end up in that sword fight. Um, and I think that inevitability is the engineering of a good story.

[27:25] Gordon Cox: Um, yeah. I feel like the speed with which you write would make you a good candidate for TV writing because they need a lot of writing really fast.

[27:33] Lauren Gunderson: They do and often rewriting really fast too. Um is that a thing you are interested in exploring or have explored?

[27:39] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, I mean I've explored a little bit. It's kind of right project, right time, you know. Um, and because I don't live in either New York or LA, it's a big, it's a big commitment to move, but I have written on a couple features um and do more screenwriting because it's less about the room and more about the project.

[27:56] Gordon Cox: Right.

[27:56] Lauren Gunderson: Um so yeah, but I think I'll definitely do it at some point. I'm sure it will be fun and crazy making, like all of our forms are.

[28:06] Gordon Cox: Um, what else are you what other plays are you working on right now?

[28:09] Lauren Gunderson: So I have an adaptation of a big old progressive anti-colonial, anti-sexist Peter Pan, which they're doing at Shakespeare Theatre Company, which is the big theater in DC. Um it's a real fun one to take on a mythology that is very complex and doesn't hold up well now, and say, well, what about it is worth saving and is worth bringing to a new generation, and how can we take that as an opportunity to say, let's talk about um these indigenous stereotypes, let's talk about the roles of women in the show, um, and really do something new and exciting with it. Um, but knowing that people will come and see it. So, in some ways, taking the um the strategy of doing Peter Pan and turning it into a kind of activism almost.

Like people are gonna come see Peter Pan because it says Peter Pan, but when they get there, they're going to find a story about women with agency and an indigenous character that has um fierce intelligence and schools everybody there about what that life is like.

[29:12] Gordon Cox: Um yeah, so that um I mean god, I there's so many things going on right now. There's a lot.

[29:19] Lauren Gunderson: Um yeah, but that's one of the ones I'm excited about. A bunch of musicals.

[29:22] Gordon Cox: Yeah, you're starting to work on a lot of musicals now.

[29:25] Lauren Gunderson: Oh my god. I it's so funny because I hadn't really grown up. I was not a musical kid. I didn't do them in you know, any part of my school really. Um a very short solo in the musical working in college, which my mother literally cackled out loud when I sang my three lines. I know. I was like, um damn it. Anyway, uh so I did not have a great relationship with it. Um, but seeing the musicals, especially contemporary musicals and really learning how beautiful it was. But what's interesting was I'd written plays that always have a ton of heart. I don't want to see a play where the emotion is off stage. I want to see it center stage. That's what I'm doing there. How do you live this life? How do you confront sorrow and betrayal and joy? I just want to see it. That's what I want.

[30:05] Gordon Cox: Well, that's what musicals are.

[30:07] Lauren Gunderson: Man, they're like, we cannot have enough emotions. So in some ways it makes total sense that what I've been fighting so hard for in straight theater, it makes me a perfect candidate for writing musicals. So there's a musical Jeanette, which we just did at the O'Neal about America's First Congressperson, uh female congressperson with nobody knows who she is. That's with uh Ariana Ofsar, who is an amazing um musical theater talent, uh composer and lyricist as well, and a London musical and a new musical anyway, mu musical scalore.

[30:37] Gordon Cox: Is there a play of yours that you wish would get more done more often or that you wish more people had seen, had had a chance to see?

[30:44] Lauren Gunderson: That's such a good question. Um yeah, I think it's the first one I mentioned, Exit Pursued by a Bear.

[30:48] Gordon Cox: Okay.

[30:49] Lauren Gunderson: I think it is um it is a wild comedy.

[30:53] Gordon Cox: Does it have any relation to Shakespeare?

[30:55] Lauren Gunderson: Or that is a line from uh Winter's Tales. Indeed.

[30:57] Gordon Cox: It has in fact that's a stage director.

[30:59] Lauren Gunderson: It is indeed. Yes.

[31:00] Gordon Cox: It is in a play about stage directions, really.

[31:02] Lauren Gunderson: Which sounds like, well, that sounds boring as hell.

[31:04] Gordon Cox: That noises off.

[31:05] Lauren Gunderson: Yeah, right, exactly. And and that's what I think what this play does in I I want plays that do things. And this play is one that through wild comedy, um tackles uh domestic violence in a way that like people don't understand why they're laughing so hard at this thing that is so serious. But what comedy does is it unites an audience, it makes you aware of the people around you, which builds community, and you're you lean in to a story um instead of lean away, which some drama can force you to flinch and you know, literally want to leave. And comedy is like, stay, it's great, the water's warm, come on in um and it's the Southern and I'm Southern and it's a play about something that I think really matters. It's a play that ends kind of defiantly joyfully um a play about friendship and uh yeah so I I think it's kind of an odd an odd play that it just aesthetically people I don't know if they would know that I wrote it. You know what I mean?

[32:03] Gordon Cox: They're gonna go oh it's not about science and it's not people women wearing skirts and corsets and it's this kind of ferocious you know comedy film.

[32:13] Lauren Gunderson: Is there a wild idea that you have that you hadn't had a chance to write yet or that you haven't found anything?

[32:20] Gordon Cox: Oh man so many of them always yeah I mean I'm I'm at this point in my career well I will say with as much confidence as my you know southern humbleness will allow me. But um I know how to write a play now and so what is the thing that scares me? What is the thing to do next? What is the thing to do with the forum that I don't know if it's gonna work. But um I mean I love writing every play. I love the discoveries and the journey of it but what is something that I can do now at my point in my career where I can kind of tear it apart and mess with it and see if we can make something new.

[32:53] Lauren Gunderson: So that is uh one play that I'm working on uh that's a commission does that and I am a bit terrified of it and it kind of makes me want to do more so I I think there's a couple new ideas that um yeah that I I want to play with my own comfort zones which I think every artist gets to that point where that's where they know that they're learning ready to ready to shift and change and challenge.

[33:19] Gordon Cox: We look forward to seeing those uh when they happen. And happy opening tonight. I'm talking to do just before the opening of Half-Life of Marie and Read Curry. So congratulations. Happy opening.

[33:26] Lauren Gunderson: Thanks, Lauren.

[33:36] Gordon Cox: That was Lauren Gunderson, the writer of The Half-Life of Marie Curie, now playing at Off Broadway's Minette Lane Theater, and the author of shows that will be seen around the country this year, including Miss Bennett, Christmas at Pemberley, I and You, The Book of Will, Natural Shocks, and Exit Pursued by a Bear.

[33:54] Gordon Cox: If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, I'd really appreciate it if you took the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Or tell a fellow theater fan about us. I'll be back next week with another new episode. Until then, see you at the theater.