Lauren Yee


Lauren Yee is an American playwright and television writer. Her play, Cambodian Rock Band, received the 2018 Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play.

Early life and education

Yee was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She graduated from Lowell High School in 2003.
Yee graduated from Yale University in 2007, majoring in English and Theatre Arts. She then attended University of California, San Diego's MFA playwriting program and graduated in 2012.

Career

Yee is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab, a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, and has worked under commission from the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center, and Mixed Blood. She has named "Christopher Chen, Julia Cho, Mike Lew, and so, so many others" and "graphic novelists Thi Bui and Gene Luen Yang," among others, as Asian American playwrights and writers she admires.
In addition to plays, Yee has written for the Netflix series Mixtape.

Personal life

Yee is currently based in New York City. She is married to Zachary Zwillinger, an attorney. The two met at Yale.

Plays

  • Ching Chong Chinaman
  • Crevice
  • The Tiger Among Us
  • The Hatmakers Wife
  • Samsara
  • in a word
  • Hookman
  • King of the Yees The Great Leap Cambodian Rock Band The Song of Summer Young Americans
  • ''A Wrinkle In Time''

Awards and honors

2019
  • Doris Duke Performing Artist Award
  • Steinberg Playwright Award, with a cash award of $50,000.
  • Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for Cambodian Rock Band, which includes a $25,000 prize.
  • Whiting Award in Drama
  • Signature Theatre Company Residency 5 program. The program "guarantees playwrights three premieres over five years."
2018
  • Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play for Cambodian Rock Band.
  • Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist for The Great Leap
  • Princeton University MacKall Gwinn Hodder Fellows for the 2018–2019 academic year.
2017
2016
2015
2014
  • Lark Playwrights’ Week playwright
  • Constance Saltonstall Foundation residency Berkeley Rep Ground Floor finalist
  • Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Playwrights runner-up
2013
  • O’Neill Conference playwright
  • Sundance Theatre Lab finalist Playwrights’ Center Core Writer
  • Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant
  • Playwrights Realm Page One resident playwright
  • Second Stage Theatre – Shank playwright-in-residence
  • UCross Foundation residency
  • L. Arnold Weissberger Award nominee
  • Gerbode Foundation Playwright Commissioning Award
2012
  • Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee
  • Bay Area Playwrights Festival winner
  • Ma-Yi Writers Lab playwright PEN USA Literary Award for Drama finalist
  • Time Warner fellow at the Women's Project Playwrights Lab
  • Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle nominee
  • Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Works Festival winner
  • East West Players’ Face of the Future Playwriting Competition third place
  • Aurora Theatre Global Age Project finalist
2011
  • PlayPenn Conference playwright
  • KCACTF's Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award winner
  • KCACTF's Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award winner
  • IICAS Student Research Travel Grant recipient
2010
2009
2007