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With the Justice Department’s recent release of the Epstein Files, certain individuals have been implicated in the 3.5 million emails that were made public on Janury 30. One of them in the theatre community was playwright Lauren Gunderson, who is named 9 times in the files.
While there is no evidence of any direct communication between Gunderson and Epstein, her name appears in a series of emails sent from a joint account with now ex-husband Nathan Wolfe, inviting him to their wedding and announcing the birth of their child.
Just yesterday, Rhode Island theatre Contemporary Theater Company announced it would cancel its upcoming production of The Revolutionists due to the revelation. Gunderson has since responded to the news. She writes on Instagram:
“I’m appalled. I need to be absolutely and abundantly clear: I never met or knew the monster Jeffrey Epstein, and have had no connection to him for the entirety of my life. His vile crimes and conduct are abhorrent, and I universally condemned his actions and legacy long ago, and still do. I was shocked to discover only days ago that my name appears in the public files because of an electronic Paperless Post 2012 wedding reception invitation sent to him. I was given a sizable contact list by my then fiancé and his email was in it. That same list was blind copied to send two subsequent birth announcements years later. I did not know/meet/have knowledge of/engage in any way with Epstein before or after that initial invitation was sent, nor did he attend any event at which I was present including my wedding.”
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 William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award; a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Weisberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting; and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company.
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. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and is now at Audible.com. Her work is published at Bloomsbury (Revolutionary Women: A Lauren Gunderson Anthology, anthropology, I and You), 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 Ari Afsar (Jeannette), Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveller’s Wife), Joriah Kwamé (Sinister), Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise), and Kira Stone (Built for This). She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation.
Photo Credit: Tatiana
