I and You by Lauren Gunderson

Winner of the 2014 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Playwrighting Prize, I AND YOU is a haunting, shocking music-box of a play about youth, poetry, hope, heart, and the connections between us all.

More at: iandyouplay.tumblr.com

One afternoon in your town, Anthony arrives at Caroline’s door bearing waffle fries, a beat-up copy of Walt Whitman...
Winner of the 2014 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award and finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Playwrighting Prize, I AND YOU is a haunting, shocking music-box of a play about youth, poetry, hope, heart, and the connections between us all.

More at: iandyouplay.tumblr.com

One afternoon in your town, Anthony arrives at Caroline’s door bearing waffle fries, a beat-up copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and an urgent assignment from their high school lit teacher. Living most of her life online, Caroline is sick and hasn’t been to school is months, but she is as quick and sardonic as Anthony is athletic and popular. As these two let down their guards and share their secrets, this seemingly vanilla poetry assignment unlocks a much deeper mystery that has brought them together. I AND YOU is a valentine to life, love, and the strange and surprising beauty of human connectedness.
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I and You

Recommended by

  • Anna Tatelman:
    30 Mar. 2024
    “ I saw this play at Seattle's Strawberry Theatre Festival in summer 2023. The script, at first, gives us a familiar premise: two characters stuck in a room together, despite neither fully wanting to be there. But Gunderson soon cleverly subverts our expectations in more ways than one, all while charming us with her characters' banter and tenderly, cleverly drawing us closer to a gut-punch of an ending. ”
  • Jan Rosenberg:
    13 Sep. 2021
    “ I was going full speed with this play, and the ending hit me right in the face. Beautifully and brilliantly crafted. ”
  • Steven G. Martin:
    4 Jan. 2021
    “ This full-length play is a coming-of-age tale told on an imaginative scale I've never experienced before.

    I originally read Lauren Gunderson's "I and You" in American Theatre magazine. Absolutely everything works, starting with Gunderson's characters, the almost entirely opposite Anthony and Caroline. Their personal histories more than address their current-day choices, they form the very basis of the story itself.

    Yes, enjoy the surprise ending, but audiences and readers will enjoy the trip to that destination as much as the destination itself. A brilliant play. ”
View all 13 recommendations

ANTHONY, a boy, 17. He is neat, poised, mature for his age. African-American. He’s an “a” student, a team player, a nice guy. He’s not really great around girls. he takes his homework very seriously. when he likes something (jazz music) he is all in. Throughout the whole play he looks at Caroline like he’s trying to figure her out. Like he really needs to know who she is.

CAROLINE, a girl, 17. She is in comfy clothing, she does not expect company. She doesn’t go out. She is cynical, over it, does not let a stray “feeling” near the surface. White.

Casting Note:
The race of each character can be altered. The only essentiality is that the characters not be the same race.

More about this here: http://iandyouplay.tumblr.com/post/91394901218/on-insisting-that-i-and-y...

Development History

  • Workshop
    ,
    South Coast Rep, Pacific Playwrights Festival
    ,
    2013
  • Workshop
    ,
    Magic Theatre
    ,
    2013
  • Commission
    ,
    South Coast Rep
    ,
    2012

Production History

  • Professional
    ,
    Olney Theatre
    ,
    2014
  • Professional
    ,
    Phoenix Theatre
    ,
    2014
  • Professional
    ,
    Geva Theatre
    ,
    2014
  • Professional
    ,
    Marin Theatre Company
    ,
    2013