Revolutionary Women: A Lauren Gunderson Play Collection: Emilie: La Marquise du Chtelet Defends Her Life Tonight; The Revolutionists; Ada and the Engine; Silent Sky; Natural Shocks

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Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list three times including 2022/23. A two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award and a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, her work has been seen by audiences across the world. this is a collection of her plays inspired by historical women, science, and literature. Revolutionary Women is the first collected works by Gunderson, brining together the stories of extraordinary women from throughout history whilst also serving as a lens by which to see modern American Feminism is action. Introduced and contextualized by dramaturg Julie Felise Dubiner this is a unique and necessary collection for theatre fans and students of historical drama. Emilie: La Marquise Du Chtelet Defends Her Life Tonight: Passionate. Brilliant. Defiant. Tonight, 18th century scientific genius Emilie du Chtelet is back and determined to answer the question she died with: love or philosophy, head or heart In this highly theatrical rediscovery of one of historys most intriguing women, Emilie defends her life and loves; and ends up with both a formula and a legacy that permeates history. The Revolutionists: Playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, loose their heads and try to beat back the extremist insanity in the Paris of 1793. What was a hopeful revolution for the people is now sinking into hyper violent hypocritical male rhetoric. However will modern audiences relate. A grand and dream-tweaked comedy about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. Ada and the Engine: Ada Lovelace is our main character. Fiery, brilliant woman who wrote the first computer program and imagined that computers would make music in 1830. At 17 she befriends the inestimable Charles Babbage and together they would imagine the future - a world where a thinking engine could not only do complicated calculations, but talk to itself, predict outcomes, and even make music. Alas Babbages machine was never built. But the program Ada wrote for it remains. Silent Sky: The true story of 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt plays out against a landscape of fierce sisterly love, early feminism, universe-revealing science, and a time when humans were called computers. Natural Shocks: Based on Hamlet's To be or not to be, Natural Shocks is a 60-minute, one-woman tour-de-force play that bursts to life when we meet a woman waiting out an imminent tornado in her basement. Angela, our fast-talking heroine, overflows with quirks, stories, and a final secret that puts the reality of guns in America in your very lap. The play is part confessional, part stand up, and part reckoning.

Author Bio

Lauren Gunderson has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list twice including 2019/20. 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 and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundations Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYUs Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and her play The Half-Life of Marie Curie is available on 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. LaurenGunderson.com