David Auburn is a playwright, screenwriter, and theatre director. He is best known for his 2000 play Proof, which won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play and Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and was later adapted into a film in 2005. Other films he has worked on include The Lake House, and his directorial debut with The Girl in the Park. He wrote several short plays, collectively grouped as Fifth Planet and Other Plays. His first full-length play, Skyscraper, ran Off Broadway in 1997. He has worked on other plays such as The Columnist, Lost Lake, Sick, and Side Effects. He has been awarded the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
David and I chatted about the origins of Proof and how he solved it as well as . . .
- How he “warmed up” to writing plays by writing sketches and one-acts first (and a business reason why this is a great place for emerging playwrights to start)
- The most important reason why he thinks Proof was so successful and why it’s done everywhere.
- Why he enjoys directing other people’s work, but doesn’t want to do his own.
- The difference between writing screenplays and stage plays.
- Where he gets his ideas . . . and what he does first when he gets one.
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