About the Play:

I and You has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.

I and You is a full-length drama by Lauren Gunderson. Mysteriously forced together to complete a book report, an unlikely pair of teenagers discover a shocking secret that will connect them forever. The end will leave you speechless. Joyful and heartbreaking, I and You carries an uplifting message about friendship and living life to the full.

I and You is about the existential crisis of being an almost-adult. One afternoon, Anthony, a high school athlete, arrives unexpectedly at classmate Caroline's door bearing a beat-up copy of Walt Whitman's “Leaves of Grass”, and an urgent assignment from their English teacher for a poetry project. Housebound due to chronic illness, Caroline hasn't been to school in months and is suffering from her isolation, but she is as quick and sardonic as Anthony is funny and sensitive. Caroline slowly begins to let her guard down in ways she never expected, as Anthony charms her into sharing her feelings about her life with a progressive sickness. Eventually this seemingly mundane poetry project unlocks a much deeper mystery that has brought them together on this day. Charming, mysterious, and poetic, I and You is an uplifting story about the beauty and the mystery of human connection.

I and You received a National New Play Network rolling world premiere that started in 2013 at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, California followed by performances at Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland and Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, Indiana, and won the prestigious 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. Since then the play had premieres at professional theatres around the World. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female, 1 male (should be cast with actors that are not the same race)

What people say:

"Sharp and funny. Gunderson taps into a buoyant spirit...the touching 'barbaric yawp' (Whitman's phrase) of these two deeply engaging kids." — Washington Post

"By the close, Gunderson has guided us toward a sublime transfiguration that encompasses 'Leaves of Grass,' John Coltrane, Jerry Lee Lewis, space and time, bodies and spirits, death and rebirth." — The New Yorker

"The show is suffused not with the bleakness that you might expect, but with a strong sense of potential and promise." — Daily Mail

"Gunderson's gift is the best thing a play can offer: we might be better people after seeing it." — DC Theatre Scene

"The striking twists and turns along the progression of the rapid-paced work are astonishing, breath-taking, and mind-blowing." — DC Metro Theater Arts

About the Playwright:

Lauren M. Gunderson is an American playwright, screenwriter, and short story author originally from Atlanta, Georgia. 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.