How does the set of I and You reflect the lives of Caroline and Anthony?
First of all, the set is a bit of a chaotic mess. To the audience, Caroline is a typical teenager and therefore lives in a world of her own sense of "organization". In the design sense, this room is also a metaphor for Caroline's state of mind. The walls are a collection of her life as seen from her bedroom—all the places she wants to travel, people she wants to meet, and the every minutia of the world she wants to explore.

What is your favorite piece of the I and You set, and why?
Of course, my favorite is the walls. I have an idea where it's going to go, but at this moment it will evolve into its own being. I will let it lead me to find Caroline and the universe of her imagination. When you see it, you'll understand.

Did any aspect of the set change from your original plans?
No.

What questions did you ask yourself early on when designing a set?
This really can't be answered because I designed the show backwards from the end. Until you experience the final moments of this production, you really don't know the whats and whys. I can't reveal that to the audience. But again, you'll understand once you've had this impactful experience.

Why do you believe theatre is important?
Theatre is the study of human nature. Why do we do what we do and why it makes a difference. Theatre gives us all relatable scenarios and asks us to get involved and expose our humanness by admitting our character differences, our flaws, and our fears. Asking why theatre and the arts in general are important is better asked "why is air important". If I am to live, I must breathe. Ergo oxygen is important. If I am human, I must express my existence with others. Therefore, art is fundamentally 100% human expression. Theatre is art. Theatre is life. Theatre is like oxygen for us humanity.

What is I and You about?
I and You is about two teenagers brought together due to an English project concerning Walt Whitman’s, Leaves of Grass. Through this project however, they navigate their youth as teenagers in high school as they ponder topics such mortality, love, and New York City.
 
What role do you play, and how do they fit into the story?
I play Anthony. Anthony is a high school senior who is an “A” student. He loves life, poetry, jazz, the saxophone, and basketball. His role in the story is the person that comes into Caroline’s room with the news that they have an English project to complete that is due the next day.
 
What are some of your character’s strengths and weaknesses?
Anthony’s strengths are that he is charismatic and friendly. Weaknesses include procrastination and his undying love of pop tarts.
 
What do you find most challenging about your character?
I think what challenges me most about Anthony is the task of tapping into his life and genuinely playing a high school senior. My high school senior year was only 3 years ago so I still remember, to an extent, what that was like to me. I also keep in mind however, that as high school seniors, Anthony and I have had a very different experience. It’s important for me to recognize both the similarities and the differences.
 
What line in the play means the most to you?
Anthony says at one point, “I’d love to go to New York City.” Caroline seconds that. Being born and raised in New York City, it is very cool to hear these characters have this strong desire to go to the “Big Apple.” I think it hints at their youthful energy and their desire experience so much more in life than they have experienced already. I think that is such a big part of this play. These two teenagers—whether one wants to admit it or not—are hungry for life. They know that there is so much more out there than their high school experience.
 
What makes I and You challenging/exciting/interesting to you?
The challenge of this play is for me to convincingly play a high school student whose experience was in most ways not like my own. Not all people in high school had the same experience. I know my experience in high school was far different than Anthony’s experience, but you would think that the fact that I went through and graduated from high school only three years ago would be enough preparation to convincingly play a high school student. I believe the audience will be able to tell if I am acting out the clichés of a teenager in high school. The audience, I am sure, would not only see through that, but feel disconnected from my character.
 
Why do you believe theatre is important?
Theatre is important because in some ways it helps people process, digest, and live the human experience. Different stories in theatre can relate to somebody in the audience or inform another person in the audience about a story and/or experience that is not only not their own, but is also a story and/or experience that they were never aware existed. Of course, and this should not go unsaid, theatre is a great form of entertainment. I believe to be entertained is a powerful and important thing that one can give to another person or group of people.

What is I and You about? 
Caroline is a feisty teenage girl who has taken a leave of absence from high school due to a serious medical condition. At the beginning of the play, Anthony shows up in her bedroom to get her help on a school project which analyzes Walt Whitman’s poem Leaves of Grass. Caroline and Anthony’s encounter turns into a humorous and determined battle of wills. 
 
What do you like about I and You? 
The characters have a story that is spirited, combative, funny, mysterious and emotionally-charged.
 
What is most challenging/interesting about the play? 
The most interesting part of the play is how the characters surprise each other.  
 
What is your favorite part of the directing process? 
Once the staging outline is set in, I love discovering the unpredictable behavior that reveals the characters’ personalities. There is no small talk on stage because everything means something. In rehearsal we explore how the characters need each other and how they approach each moment in their roller-coaster relationship. 
 
How many aspects of the show have changed since your original plans? 
No matter how thoroughly I prepared to direct the play, everything changes once the play is cast. I have no way of knowing in advance how the actors will work together or how they will respond to the challenges that I offer. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Victoria Fearn and Jabari Matthew on this production! They are young artists who have had excellent training, and they bring to the rehearsal intelligent ideas, bold choices and imaginative verve. Even though we only started working a few days ago, they have great chemistry together!
 
What makes I and You relatable to audiences here and now? 
The story deals with The Big Questions concerning our greatest hopes and fears about life and death. Walt Whitman’s poetry is the catalyst for the characters discovering an extraordinary connection.
 
What types of conversations do you want the audience members to have on their way home from seeing this play? 
I hope they will be discussing the meaning of the relationship between Caroline and Anthony.   

Reprinted from The Big Story. Written by MARK KENNEDY 
Feb. 4, 2016 3:30 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Lauren Gunderson is such a rare theatrical talent, you might be tempted to approach her very quietly, so as not to frighten her away.

"Indeed. Be careful. I might disappear," she says, conspiratorially.

Gunderson is a young female playwright, which is special enough. She's also prolific and has produced across the country. Plus, she loves writing complex characters for women. Can she really exist?

"I think I do. But this might be 'The Matrix,' so you never know."

The San Francisco-based playwright, who recently won a Dramatist Guild of America award, is lately enjoying a wave of interest, with her plays being produced in New York, Cincinnati and Denver this month alone.

"I love stories that move, where there's energy and wit and a little romance," she says in the lobby of 5959 Theaters, where her two-character "I & You" is playing. "I write plays I want to see."

Born in Atlanta, this one-time actress turned to writing after being frustrated by the lack of good female roles. At 15, she penned her first play, "Parts They Call Deep," about three women in a Winnebago.

Later, always drawn to discoverers and explorers, she wrote plays about trailblazing but forgotten women in history like Victorian computer visionary Ada Lovelace, Age of Enlightenment physicist Emilie du Chatelet and early 20th-century astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt.

Gunderson, 33, said she looks for the inherent drama in key moments in history, what she calls "moments of decision." It could be when two people meet or a sudden realization.

"In a lot of my plays, what makes science so great for theater is it's about these moments of great change, great discovery. And that's true in 'Oedipus Rex' and 'Hamlet' — these moments when you know something you can't unknow."

Gunderson's output is so well received that she landed in the top 10 of American Theatre magazine's most produced playwrights this season with 13 shows, three more than Eugene O'Neill.

She writes at a time when very few new produced plays are written by women. Statistics released last year by the Dramatists Guild of America and the Lilly Awards found that only 22 percent of some 2,500 contemporary theater productions from 2011-14 were written by women.

"I think it's just a bit of fear and a lot of traditionalism that leads to people making safe choices. I mean, that's what it is, right? It's safe," she said. Changing it is as simple as women producers: "It's actually not that hard. Just do it."
Suzy Evans, senior editor of American Theatre magazine, said she admires Gunderson's ability to create works that have an educational component and also spotlight lost contributions by women.

"In the same way people are so excited about 'Hamilton' on Broadway and how Lin-Manuel Miranda is reclaiming the founding of America for immigrants and for people of color, Lauren is reclaiming history and scientific narratives — that have been mainly the story of men — for young women and for women across the country."
This month, Gunderson's many interests are on show. In New York is "I & You," her play with a twist about two young people wrestling with Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." At the Cincinnati Playhouse is the world premiere of "The Revolutionists," a play about four women during the French Revolution.

And her next one is "The Book of Will," focusing on Shakespeare's friends who collected his plays and preserved his legacy, which is being fine-tuned at the Colorado New Play Summit.

Gunderson is doing all that while also being a new mom to an 18-month-old son, which is already making her explore ideas about childhood, legacy and mortality — all likely grist for her next plays.

"It's a really interesting time for me — just all the living that one does in between writing," she said, laughing. "You definitely have to live to write but writing also reminds you to live."