Lauren Gunderson most produced living playwright in 2016 and 2017. Gunderson was awarded the Lanford Wilson award in 2016. Her play "I and You" was the winner of the 2014 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, and a finalist for the 2014 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Forward Theater, located in Madison, Wisconsin, will stage "I and You" from November 2–19, 2017. Artists Repertory Theatre, located in Portland, Oregon, will stage "I and You" from May 20 to June 17, 2018. Gunderson's play "Exit, Pursued By A Bear" has been performed around the country, winning Best Comedy in Austin,
The Bear (play) the gardener and coachman. "The Bear"'s comedy derives from the characters' lack of self-knowledge. The widow Popova fancies herself inconsolably bereaved, while Smirnov considers himself a misogynist. They are both stock examples of "alazons": figures made ludicrous by pretending to be more than they actually are. "The Bear" is one of many of Chekhov's "farce-vaudevilles", which also includes "The Proposal," "A Tragedian in Spite of Himself", and the unfinished "Night before the Trial". In a letter to Yakov Polonsky on February 22, 1888 Chekhov wrote: Chekhov used the French play "Les Jurons de Cadillac" by Pierre Berton as inspiration for