Based on Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” Natural Shocks is a 60-minute, one-woman tour-de-force play that bursts to life when we meet a woman waiting out an imminent tornado in her basement. Angela, our fast-talking heroine, overflows with quirks, stories, and a final secret that puts the reality of guns in America in your very lap. The play is part confessional, part stand up, and part reckoning. It’s also a MUST SEE!
In order to provide the safest possible theatre experience, all audience members will be required to show proof of either (1) Covid vaccination or (2) a negative same-day covid test in order to attend Southbank shows. Masks will also be required when not actively eating or drinking. Please see our Covid-19 policy if you have further questions.
Lauren is a playwright, screenwriter and short story author from Atlanta, GA. 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.
She was named the most produced playwright in America by American Theatre Magazine in 2017 and 2019. Lauren was awarded the 2016 Lanford Wilson Award from the Dramatist Guild, the 2016 Otis Gurnsey Award for Emerging Writer, and was awarded the prestigious 2014 and 2018 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for her plays I and You (also a Susan Smith Blackburn Blackburn and John Gassner Award finalist) and The Book of Will. That play was an NNPN Rolling World Premiere that started at Marin Theatre Company and has seen over 40 productions nationwide. She is also a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s 3-Year Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She co-authored the play Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley with Margot Melcon and is now published at Dramatists Play Publishing. It was also one of the most produced plays in America for the 2017-2018 season.
Bauer, commissioned by San Francisco Playhouse, premiered there and in New York City at 59E59, with The New Yorker calling it “beautifully written… brings its audience to tears”. Her play Silent Sky (Jane Chambers Award finalist) premiered at South Coast Rep in 2011 and was further developed and rewritten for TheatreWorks, which opened to raves calling it “sheer magic”. Her 2011 3-city rolling world premiere of Exit, Pursued By A Bear, was featured in American Theatre Magazine and The Week, and has reached over 20 communities across the US winning “Best Comedy” accolades. Bear is now published by Playscripts, as is her comedy, Toil and Trouble and The Taming, which the San Francisco Chronicle called “a laugh riot with timely food for thought.”
Her first musical, The Amazing Adventures of Dr. Wonderful and Her Dog!, commissioned by The Kennedy Center, opened in DC to rave reviews and continues its life in state-wide tours. Her first children’s book based on Dr. Wonderful was released by Two Lions Publishing in 2017. Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Tonight was commissioned and premiered at South Coast Rep in 2009, and has run across the country and in England. By and By premiered at Shotgun Players in Berkeley. Fire Work was developed at The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, is a 2011 winner for Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project, and premiered at Theatre First in 2014. She has developed plays with Second Stage, Red Bull, and Primary Stages in New York City; New Rep in Boston; Playwrights Foundation, Crowded Fire, TheatreWorks, Aurora Theatre, and The Magic Theatre in San Francisco; Kitchen Dog Theatre in Dallas; Synchronicity, Actor Express and Horizon Theatre in Atlanta; JAW at Portland Center Stage in Portland; WORDBridge, Brave New Works, and others.
Her work has received national praise and awards including being a Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award finalist, a Susan Smith Blackburn finalist, a Jane Chambers Award finalist, and winner of the Berrilla Kerr Award for American Theatre, Global Age Project, Young Playwright’s Award, Eric Bentley New Play Award, and Essential Theatre Prize.
She has been commissioned by South Coast Rep (3 times), San Francisco Playhouse (2 times), The Denver Center Theatre Company, Crowded Fire, CentralWorks, The Kennedy Center, The Alliance Theatre’s Collision Project, Marin Theatre Company, Actors Express Theatre, Dad’s Garage Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, City University of New York, and Synchronicity Performance Group.
She received a Sloan Science Script Award (2008) for her screenplay Grand Unification. Leap was published with Theatre Emory’s Playwriting Center (2004), her first collection of plays, Deepen The Mystery: Science and the South Onstage, is published with iUniverse (2006). Her short story, “The Ascending Life”, won the Norembega Short Fiction Award and was published in the anthology, The Shape of Content. Her science play Background was published in ISOTOPE: A Journal of Nature and Science Writing. Her string theory poem “Hook of a Number” was published in the anthology Riffing On Strings and her monologue “Mass” was published in The Science Creative Quarterly 2015.
She has spoken nationally and internationally on the intersection of science and theatre and Arts Activism, and teaches playwriting in San Francisco. She is a Playwright in Residence at The Playwrights Foundation, a Dramatists Guild member, and was a member of Just Theatre’s New Play Lab. She writes for The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and tweets @LalaTellsAStory.
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