Lauren Yee (playwright)

Lauren Yee ( zh, 余秀菊) is an American playwright.

Early life and education

Yee was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She graduated from Lowell High School in 2003.

Yee graduated from Yale University in 2007, majoring in English and Theatre Arts. She then attended University of California, San Diego's MFA playwriting program.

Among Yee's biggest influences are her great-grandparents who migrated to America from China during the era when the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect. To circumnavigate this they would migrate through Mexico across the Southern border to America and up to San Francisco. In addition, her father, Larry, inspired her to write two plays, these being "The Great Leap," and "King of the Yees." Both of these plays draw directly from her Chinese American History.

Career

Yee is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab and a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer and has worked under commission from the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center, and Mixed Blood.

In awarding the Whiting Award for 2019, the Selection Committee noted: "Her dialogue feels like overheard speech; even on the page, it asserts its vibrant, specific life...These plays feel ambitious and even monumental. They are also raucously funny, without ever losing sight of nuanced human experience."

Personal life

Yee married Zachary Zwillinger, an attorney, in September 2012 in San Francisco; the couple met at Yale.

Plays

*''Ching Chong Chinaman'' (Berkeley Impact Theatre)
*''Crevice'' (Impact Theatre)
*''The Tiger Among Us'' (January - February 2013, Mu Performing Arts (Minneapolis)
*''The Hatmakers Wife'' (developed at PlayPenn New Play Conference in 2011; August 27, 2013 - September 21, 2013, Off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons)
*''Samsara'' (February 2015 - March 8, Chicago)
*''in a word'' (April 2015, San Francisco Playhouse)
*''Hookman'' (May 2015, Encore Theatre Company, San Francisco)
*''King of the Yees'' (2015, The Goodman Theatre's New Stages Festival)
* ''The Great Leap'' (2018, Off-Broadway)
* ''Cambodian Rock Band'' (2018, South Coast Repertory)
* ''The Song of Summer'' (2019, Trinity Repertory Company)
* ''Young Americans'' (2023, Portland Center Stage/Pittsburgh Public Theater)

Awards and honors

(in reverse chronological order)

2019
* Doris Duke Performing Artist Award
*Steinberg Playwright Award, with a cash award of $50,000.
*Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for ''Cambodian Rock Band'', which includes a $25,000 prize.
* Whiting Award in Drama
*Signature Theatre Company (New York City) Residency 5 program. The program "guarantees playwrights three premieres over five years."

2018
*Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play for ''Cambodian Rock Band''.
*Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist for ''The Great Leap''
*Princeton University MacKall Gwinn Hodder Fellows for the 2018–2019 academic year.

2017
* Joseph Kesselring Prize for ''The Great Leap''.

2016
* Will Glickman Playwright Award winner (for ''in a word'')
* Ashland New Play Festival – Women's Invitational winner (for ''King of the Yees'')
* Francesca Primus Prize from the American Theatre Critics Association

2015
* The Kilroys List Top 50 (for ''King of the Yees'' and ''The Tiger Among Us'')
* Susan Smith Blackburn nominee (for ''in a word'')
* The Chance Theatre playwright-in-residence
* Theatre Bay Area Award nominee – Outstanding World Premiere Play (for ''Hookman'')

2014
* Lark Playwrights’ Week playwright (for ''The Tiger Among Us'')
* Constance Saltonstall Foundation residency Berkeley Rep Ground Floor finalist (for ''King of the Yees'')
* Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Playwrights runner-up (for ''The Tiger Among Us'')

2013
* O’Neill Conference playwright (for ''Samsara'')
* Sundance Theatre Lab finalist (for in a word) Playwrights’ Center Core Writer (2013-2016)
* Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant (with the Goodman Theatre, for ''King of the Yees'')
* Playwrights Realm Page One resident playwright
* Second Stage Theatre – Shank playwright-in-residence
* UCross Foundation residency
* L. Arnold Weissberger Award nominee (for ''Samsara'')
* Gerbode Foundation Playwright Commissioning Award (with Encore Theatre Company)

2012
* Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee (for ''Samsara'')
* Bay Area Playwrights Festival winner (for ''Samsara'')
* Ma-Yi Writers Lab playwright (2012–present) PEN USA Literary Award for Drama finalist (for ''A Man, his Wife, and his Hat'')
* Time Warner fellow at the Women's Project Playwrights Lab
* Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle nominee (for ''Crevice'')
* Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Works Festival winner (for ''A Man, his Wife, and his Hat'')
* East West Players’ Face of the Future Playwriting Competition third place (for ''Samsara'')
* Aurora Theatre Global Age Project finalist (for ''in a word'')

2011
* PlayPenn Conference playwright (for ''A Man, his Wife, and his Hat'')
* KCACTF's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award winner (for ''in a word'')
* KCACTF's Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award winner (for ''in a word'')
* IICAS Student Research Travel Grant recipient (for Mu Performing Arts commission)

2010
* MAP Fund grantee (with Mu Performing Arts)
* Hangar Theater Lab Company playwright-in-residence (for ''in a word'')
* Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting (for ''Ching Chong Chinaman'')
* El Gouna Writers’ Residency fellow

2009
* MacDowell Colony fellow
* Public Theater Emerging Writers Group member
* Theatre Bay Area New Works Fund commission (with AlterTheater)
* Wasserstein Prize finalist PONY Fellowship finalist
* Jerome Fellowship finalist (selected)
* American Antiquarian Society – Robert and Charlotte Baron fellow
* Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers fellow
* 2008 Princess Grace Award finalist (for ''Ching Chong Chinaman'')
* Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grantee Dramatists Guild fellow New York Mills Arts Retreat writer-in-residence
* Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow PlayGround June Anne Baker Prize winner/commission (for ''Crevice'')

2007
* Kumu Kahua Theatre Pacific Rim Prize winner (for ''Ching Chong Chinaman'')

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yee, Lauren
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
Writers from San Francisco
Yale College alumni
University of California, San Diego alumni
American dramatists and playwrights of Chinese descent
American women dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American women writers