David auburn biography
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David Auburn is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter who has also worked as a director. His play Proof is among his best-known works, and is what won him the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the Tony Award for Best Play.
Auburn was born in Chicago and raised in Ohio and Arkansas, and he attended the University of Chicago and studied playwriting at the Juilliard School. His first Off-Broadway play was Skyscraper, which debuted in 1997. In 2000, Proof was produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club, starring Mary-Louise Parker. Proof was then adapted into a film in 2005, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Hope Davis. In 2006, he wrote The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.
In 2012, Auburn's play The Columnist was produced at the Manhattan Theatre Club, directed by Daniel Sullivan. In 2019, he wrote the crime film Georgetown, directed by Christoph Waltz, starring Waltz, Vanessa Redgrave, Annette Bening, and Corey Hawkins.
Study Guides on Works by David Auburn
ProofDavid Auburn
Proof is a play by American playwright David Auburn. After a development process at George Street Playhouse, the play premiered in 2000 Off Broadway, then transferred to Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre a few months later. It was directed by...
David Auburn
BIO
David Auburn's plays include Proof (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award®, New York Drama Critics Circle Award), An Upset and Amateurs (EST Marathons) and Skyscraper. Films include The Girl in the Park (writer/director) and The Lake House. Recent directing credits include A Delicate Balance for BTF. His short plays have been collected in the volume “Fifth Planet and Other Plays” (DPS). His work has been published in Harper’s, New England Review, and Guilt and Pleasure; and he was a contributing editor to the Oxford American Writers Thesaurus. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in New York City.
Photos
Date:
03/14/2012
From: Photo Coverage: Meet the Company of THE COLUMNIST - John Lithgow & More!
Awards and Nominations
winner
New York Drama Critics Circle Awards - 2001 - Best American Play
David Auburn, Proof
winner
Outer Critics Circle Awards - 2001 - John Gassner Playwriting Award
David Auburn, Proof
winner
The Pulitzer Prize - 2001 - The Pulitzer Prize for Drama
David Auburn, Proof
winner
Tony Awards - 2001 - Best Play
David Auburn, Proof
winner
Drama Desk Awards - 2000 - Outstanding Play
David Auburn, Proof
Videos
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Visiting Fellow, 2017 – 2019
David Auburn
Biography
David Auburn is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and director. Auburn’s first play, Proof, received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, and New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and is set on the University of Chicago campus. His other plays include Lost Lake (2014), The Columnist (2012), The New York Idea (adaptation, 2010), and An Upset (2008), among others. As a Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow, Auburn completed a stage adaptation of Saul Bellow’s picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March for the 2019 world premiere production at Court Theatre. Working in collaboration with Larry Norman (Romance Languages and Literatures) and Court Theatre Marilyn F. Vitale Artistic Director Charles Newell, Auburn led a new exploration of this uniquely Chicago novel on the campus that both Bellow and Auburn called their academic home.
dauburn@mac.com
Project
Visiting Fellow: David Auburn
2017 – 2018
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David Auburn
American playwright and director
David Auburn (born 30 November 1969) is an American playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. He is best known for his 2000 play Proof, which won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play and Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also wrote the screenplays for the 2005 film version of Proof, The Lake House (2006), The Girl in the Park (2007), and Georgetown (2019).
Early life
Auburn was born in Chicago, Illinois, to parents Mark and Sandy Auburn. He was raised in Ohio until 1982 when his family moved to Arkansas. After graduating from high school in 1987, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was a member of Off-Off Campus, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1991. Following a one-year fellowship with Amblin Entertainment, he moved to New York City in 1992. Auburn spent two years in the Juilliard School's playwriting program, studying under the noted dramatists Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang.
Career
Auburn wrote several short plays, collectively grouped as Fifth Planet and Other Plays. The plays, called "cockeyed and engaging little one-act comedies", were presented at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, Tucson, Arizona, in January and February 2008. The plays are: Fifth Planet, Miss You, Are You Ready, Damage Control, Three Monologues, What Do You Believe About The Future? and We Had A Very Good Time.Fifth Planet is a two-person play with 44 short scenes. Miss You is a "telephone play about love and unfaithfulness" with a two-person cast, with each actor playing 2 roles, named "man" and "woman".We Had A Very Good Time follows a married couple at the end of a vacation in an unnamed foreign country.Damage Control concerns a political consultant preparing his political boss for a speech about a scandal the politician is involved in.What Do You Believe A