LAUREN YEE

LAUREN YEE

PREMIERE WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE

Signature Productions:


Cambodian Rock Band (2020)

Lauren Yee is a playwright, screenwriter, and TV writer born and raised in San Francisco. She currently lives in New York City.

Her play Cambodian Rock Band, with music by Dengue Fever and others, premiered at South Coast Rep, with subsequent productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Victory Gardens, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep, and Signature Theatre. Her play The Great Leap has been produced at Denver Center, Seattle Rep, Atlantic Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre, Steppenwolf, Pasadena Playhouse/East West Players, and Cygnet Theatre.

Lauren Yee’s play King of the Yees premiered at The Goodman Theatre and Center Theatre Group, followed by productions at ACT Theatre, Canada’s National Arts Centre, and Baltimore Center Stage. Other plays include Ching Chong Chinaman (Pan Asian Rep, Mu Performing Arts), The Hatmaker’s Wife (Playwrights Realm, Moxie, PlayPenn), Hookman (Encore, Company One), In a Word (Young Vic, SF Playhouse, Cleveland Public, Strawdog), Samsara (Victory Gardens), The Song Of Summer (Trinity Rep, Mixed Blood), and The Tiger Among Us (Mu).

She is the winner of the Doris Duke Artist Award, the Steinberg Playwright Award, the Horton Foote Prize, the Kesselring Prize, the ATCA/Steinberg Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters literature award, and the Francesca Primus Prize. She has been a finalist for the Edward M. Kennedy Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her plays were the #1 and #2 plays on the 2017 Kilroys List.

Lauren is a Residency 5 playwright at Signature Theatre, New Dramatists member (class of 2025), Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab member, former Princeton University Hodder fellow, and Playwrights Realm alumni playwright. Current commissions include Arena Stage, Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Second Stage, South Coast Rep.

She has been a writer on Pachinko (Apple TV+), Soundtrack (Netflix), and a soon-to-be announced upcoming FX limited series. She is executive producing the adaptation of Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties for television. She is currently developing new work for Apple TV+ and Netflix.

BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD.

Photo by Lia Chang