About the Play:

The Taming is a full-length comedy by Lauren Gunderson. What happens when a conservative senatorial aid, a liberal political activist, and a super-sparkly beauty queen find themselves locked in a hotel room together? The political passions of these high-octane women prove they might just be revolutionary geniuses. The Taming is a hilarious Shakespeare inspired political comedy.

The Taming takes on America's overheated political rhetoric and upends historical truths about the founding fathers. Tweetering, pandashrews, and undying giddiness for James Madison – what else could you expect to find at a Miss America pageant? In this hilarious, raucous, all-female "power-play" inspired by by Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, super-patriot Miss Georgia has something bigger in mind for the Miss America pageant than winning a crown. She has political aspirations to match her beauty pageant ambitions. All she needs to revolutionize the American government is to update the United States Constitution. So she's locked herself in a hotel room with two captive political opposites: an ultra-conservative senator's aide on the cusp of a career breakthrough and a bleeding-heart liberal blogger who will do anything for her cause. The Taming delves into the motives and muses of American politics as well as what it means to be a woman in the proverbial boy's club. Here's lookin' at you, America.

The Taming had a simultaneous premiere in 2013 at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco and ArtsWest in Seattle. Since then the play had premieres at professional theatres and has been mounted by high schools, colleges, and community theatres.

Cast: 3 female

What people say:

"A laugh riot with some timely food for thought." — San Francisco Chronicle

"So many hysterical lines in the play that you'd hardly finish laughing at one before the next hit you." — KQED Arts

"The most tremendously entertaining civics lesson you're likely to see." — The Idiolect

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.