About the Play:

Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight is a full-length dramatic comedy by Lauren Gunderson. In this seductively theatrical rediscovery of one of history's most intriguing women, the scientific genius Emilie du Chatelet returns from the afterlife determined to answer the question she died with: love or philosophy, head or heart? She defends her life and loves, and in the process creates a legacy that alters the course of physics.

Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight is based on the real life story of Emilie du Châtelet, a scientific genius of 18th century France. Women of her era were considered too simple-minded to understand mathematics or physics, but Emilie produced work ranging from a groundbreaking paper on the nature of fire (the first by a woman ever published by the Paris Academy), to a celebrated and still-used translation and commentary on Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. She was married to a nobleman of the court of Louis XV, and took a series of lovers, including the writer and philosopher Voltaire. In the play, Emilie is returned from the afterlife to recount and defend her life. With an ensemble of four actors, she replays her interactions with family, colleagues and lovers, and examines her unanswered questions about science and philosophy, life and love.

Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight premiered in 2009 at South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, California. Since then the play had premieres at professional theatres around the US and has been mounted by high schools, colleges, and community theatres.

Cast: 3 female, 2 male

What people say:

"An evening of humor and heartbreak with a powerhouse ending." — BroadwayWorld.com

"Emilie is quite the best play I have read in a very long time." — Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright

"Gunderson possesses an antic imagination that seeks to invent its own rules. As soon as we're drawn in, she shakes us and whisks us 10 or 15 paces ahead." — Los Angeles Times

"The ambitious, non-linear experiment is a highly theatrical romp that literally crackles with electricity." — LA/OC Examiner

"...fiercely inquisitive and joyfully sexy...." — The San Francisco Chronicle

"Highly Imaginative....Highly Theatrical...." — The Berkshire Eagle

About the Playwright:

Lauren M. Gunderson is an American playwright, screenwriter, and short story author. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, she started acting when she was 10 and wrote her first play in high school. She received her BA in English/Creative Writing at Emory University, and her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch, where she was also a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship.