America’s No. 1 playwright puts women first
Lauren Gunderson didn’t singlehandedly win the fight for gender equity in American theater — but it does kind of feel that way.
Becoming the first woman to top the list of most-produced playwrights (in the 2017-18 U.S. season) was a feat, and this year’s return to the No. 1 spot might be even more impressive.
But the 37-year-old writer’s quiet rise to the top of her profession isn’t just a personal victory, because she has built her success on telling women’s stories — and providing more (and more challenging) roles to female actors.
“I certainly don’t have to search to find stories of female and female-identifying brilliance that deserves plays,” Gunderson said. “They’re everywhere, and perhaps that’s why I’m so prolific. There are so many stories to tell; I feel like I’m always catching up.”
‘Silent Sky’ at the Herberger
Born in Atlanta and based in San Francisco, Gunderson is best known for plays including “Silent Sky,” which opens Nov. 16 at the Herberger Theater Center in a production by Arizona Theatre Company.
It tells the story of real-life astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who — much like the African-American women in the movie “Hidden Figures” — was hired as a human “calculator” but ended up making a much bigger contribution to science. Her work in the early 1900s helped scientists measure distances to
the stars.
Sean Daniels, Arizona Theatre’s new artistic director, said Gunderson is “on the zeitgeist as the world finally realizes there is a countless number of women who didn’t get the credit they deserve, and she’s waiting for them with play after play that explore that.”
19 plays inspired by history, literature
Though Gunderson has never been produced on Broadway and is hardly a household name, she has become a goto for regional theaters with 19 published plays, mostly either inspired by history (“The Revolutionists,” about famous women in the French Revolution) or riffing on classic literature (“Miss Bennet,” a holiday romp based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”).
The characters in those 19 plays add up to 47 roles for women and 38 for men.
“The truth is that ‘Silent Sky’ is not a play about one great woman, it’s a play about four,” Gunderson said in an email interview. “That’s why I wanted to write it. Henrietta is one of a sisterhood, not a lone wolf.”
While there have always been plenty of onstage roles for women in theater (OK, not in Shakespeare’s day), male playwrights have tended to write more male characters, and more for them to say. Gunderson’s crowd-pleasing plays help tip the scales closer to balance.
Women playwrights making strides
But not just her plays. When American Theatre magazine surveyed 404 companies to produce its first Top 20 writers list in 2014, only three women were on it (although Sarah Ruhl was in second place). This year, women held 12 spots (out of 22, due to ties), with Gunderson at the top. And the list shows that theaters are picking more diverse playwrights in other ways as well:
❚ Lauren Yee (No. 2) has a current hit with “Cambodian Rock Band,” which just closed at the prestigious Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Arizona Theatre Company’s Daniels is a fan — he produced the play at his previous company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts.
❚ Dominique Morisseau is known for her three-play cycle “The Detroit Projects,” telling African American stories from her hometown.
❚ Karen Zacarías is co-founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons. Her “Native Gardens” was at ATC last year, and she wrote the book for “Ella Enchanted: The Musical,” which returns to Childsplay in Phoenix on Dec. 7.
❚ Lynn Nottage is the only female playwright to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice.
❚ Quiara Alegría Hudes is the book writer on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first musical, “In the Heights,” and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2007 with “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue.”
‘I write the plays I want to see’
Gunderson said she is honored to be in their company.
“I do get asked a lot if I know why I am on top of that list,” she said. “I’m probably the last person you should ask because I’m not making decisions about which plays get produced. All I know is that I write the plays I want to see, the plays I wish existed. These tend to be plays that are intellectually rigorous and compelling, emotionally rich, funny, fast and with a lot of hard hope.
“I don’t write plays that are sweet and easy, but I do write plays that end with a sense of purpose in the journey.”
“I don’t write plays that are sweet and easy, but I do write plays that end with a sense of purpose in the journey.”
Lauren Gunderson