←Recommendations of I and You

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.

I was going full speed with this play, and the ending hit me right in the face. Beautifully and brilliantly crafted.

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.

Loved this play so much, I bought the script from Playscripts and added it to my select collection. I most often produce my own work but next time I do another writer's work, I'd love to do this.
Love the genre and style. Awkward relationships with a stunning and unexpected ending.

Love this play! From the first time I encountered it on the page until I took my son to see it at 59 East 59 (he was 14 then) and it was so exciting to see his mind get blown by it! Such a beautiful story that works on multiple levels. A feast for the senses too!

Lovely and heartbreaking, both characters are so complex and well developed. It's a play I'll be thinking about for a long time. And, as a teaching artist, it's great to have material for young actors that they can connect so well to. Highly recommend!

A beautiful play that will engage and surprise you until the end. The production I caught at Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis was my introduction to this play that I know will continue to be produced for a long time to come.

This play broke me open and made my whole heart come tumbling out. Beautiful, epic, poetic, hugely imaginative, and purely soulful. I fell in love.

I can't recommend Lauren's I AND YOU highly enough. We produced it at Olney Theatre Center in the spring of 2014 and I received endlessly gushing emails from patrons about how strongly it touched them. It deserves to be produced all over the country and the world.

Gunderson has skillfully crafted an unexpected, charming, moving story of love and acceptance told through the lens of two teenagers, who on the surface couldn't be more different, coming together over a reluctant love of Walt Whitman and sharing of jazz, Jerry Lee Lewis and waffle fries. Audiences will weep over this beautifully human story.