“…a sassy, hold-on-to-your-seats theatrical adventure…[Gunderson] has created a play that is wonderfully wild and raucous…It’s a wild ride, filled with verbal gymnastics that come racing at you so quickly it’s occasionally hard to keep up. Listen closely, though, and hang on tight. If you do, you’ll be treated to an invigorating and enlightening journey.” —Cincinnati Enquirer.

“It’s simply a brilliant script…” —CityBeat Cincinnati.

“…in this sparkling work, politics is very, very funny. [Gunderson] knows it’s tricky to present entertaining, yet socially driven art, but she does so without losing the rhythm and forward momentum of her characters…These are hilarious and lovable women trapped in a history with a somber final act.” —Houston Chronicle.

“…an astoundingly accomplished show…a cause for rejoice…Ingeniously conceived and delivered.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“THE REVOLUTIONISTS resembles a blindingly scintillating gem-like puzzle…By turns it is drolly funny and affectingly poignant, then doubles back to satirical farce, then ends by bringing into stark relief the social commentary that it has been nurturing all night.” —Florida Theater On Stage.

Synopsis

Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.

Lauren is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list thrice including 2022-2023. She is a two-time winner of the Harold and Mimi 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 of the Arts 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; MISS BENNET; and GEORGIANA AND KITTY), and Samuel French (EMILIE). Her picture book, DR WONDERFUL: BLAST OFF TO THE MOON is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is the bookwriter for musicals with Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (THE TIME TRAVELER’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.

www.laurengunderson.com