Lauren Gunderson to be Honored at the 41st William Inge Theatre Festival

The William Inge Center for the Arts at Independence Community College, Kansas, ha revealed that playwright Lauren Gunderson will be presented with the Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award at the 41st annual William Inge Theatre Festival which will take place April 18th -20th 2024.

Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list thrice including 2022/23.

She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Arthur L. Weissberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting.

Her musical adaptation of The Time Traveller's Wife premieres on The West End this fall.

Revolutionary Women, her new anthology of five plays, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.

She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU's Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.

Her play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021 and is now in The COVID Art Capsule in the Library of Congress.

She co-authored the Miss Bennet trilogy with Margot Melcon. The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and at Audible.com.

Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie).

Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon.

She is the book writer for musicals with Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveller's Wife), Ari Afsar (Jeannette and I and You), Joriah Kwamé (Sinister), Kira Stone (Built for This) and Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise).

She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation, and a member of the Aspen Institute Science and Society cohort. LaurenGunderson.com

Gunderson will join the list of renowned writers such as Edward Albee, Beth Henley, August Wilson, Paula Vogel, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Miller, Neil Simon, and most recently, Lynn Nottage, who have come to Independence to accept the William Inge Festival's Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award.

The William Inge Theatre Festival is the Official Theater Festival of the State of Kansas. The three-day festival which takes place in Independence, KS, will include, readings of new works by national and regional playwrights, with the 7th annual New Play Lab, and a workshopped reading by an Inge Playwright in Residence, We will present panel discussions and workshops for theater students, practitioners, and the public.

The final event of the three day festival with conclude with an intimate interview of Lauren Gunderson by one of her distinguished colleagues about her work and life in the theatre followed by the presentation of the Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award.

Major contributors include the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the William Inge Festival Foundation, and Independence Community College.

For more information on the William Inge Center for the Arts' programming, history, and upcoming events, please visit the Center's website at www.ingecenter.org, or email info@ingecenter.org.

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