Lauren M. Gunderson & Evren Odcikin Workshop
Playwriting, Creating & Developing New Plays
14-16 October, 2025
Prague Shakespeare Company presents an unprecedented opportunity for writers, directors, and actors. We invite you to an exclusive three-day creative summit with two of the most vital voices in contemporary theatre: world-renowned and America’s most-produced living playwright Lauren M. Gunderson and visionary director Evren Odcikin. This is your chance to move beyond theory and into practice, receiving direct, personal feedback from artistic legends. You will not only master invaluable techniques in writing and directing but also see your work come to life. The workshop culminates in a professional New Work Showcase at Divadlo Na Pradle, where your new skills will be put into practice.
This rare experience includes:
• Direct mentorship from Lauren M. Gunderson on your script and writing technique.
• Insider insights into directing and developing new work from Evren Odcikin.
• Guaranteed spot in the November New Work Showcase performance.
• Transformative experience in an intimate setting, strictly limited to 12 participants.
This is a defining moment for any serious theatre artist. The fee of 10.000CZK includes the full three-day workshop, rehearsals, and the final showcase. The Showcase performance will be scheduled in November 2025 on a date that works for all participants and will include two days of rehearsal time made available in the space for the presentations.
To apply, please contact Guy Roberts, Artistic Director, Prague Shakespeare Company at
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Workshop Schedule:
Dramatic Structure
Tuesday 14 October: 18:00-19:30
Creating New Plays
Wednesday 15 October: 18:00-19:30
Playwriting Discussion with scene/monologue sharing and Q+A
Thursday 16 October: 18:00-20:00
Showcase Performance at Divadlo Na Pradle
November 2025 Date TBA in consultation with participants
LAUREN M. GUNDERSON, Playwright & Actor
Lauren is the most produced living playwright in America since 2015 topping the list thrice including 2022/23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award; a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Weisberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting; and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and is now at Audible.com. Her work is published at Bloomsbury (Revolutionary Women: A Lauren Gunderson Anthology, anthropology, I and You), Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is the book writer for musicals with Ari Afsar (Jeannette), Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveller’s Wife), Joriah Kwamé (Sinister), Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise), and Kira Stone (Built for This). She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation. LaurenGunderson.com
EVREN ODCIKIN, Director
Evren is a Turkish-American director, writer, and arts leader based in New York City and San Francisco. Recent Directing credits include The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) by Nia Akilah Robinson (Soho Rep, New York Times Critic's Pick), Macbeth and Mona Mansour’s Unseen (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Eric Reyes Loo's Simple Mexican Pleasures (New Conservatory Theater Center), Christopher Oscar Peña's Our Orange Sky (Profile Theatre), Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song (Marin Theatre), Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul (Northern Stage), the world premiere of Amir Nizar Zuabi’s This is Who I Am (Woolly Mammoth, PlayCo, A.R.T., Guthrie, and OSF), two workshops of Adam Ashraf Elsayigh's ALAA: A Family Trilogy at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor and at Golden Thread, and two workshops of Lauren Gunderson's Muse of Fire at Marin Shakes and Magic Theatre. Previously, he has helmed productions and workshops at New York Theatre Workshop, Geva Theatre Center, Berkeley Rep, South Coast Rep, the Lark, Kennedy Center, The Civilians, InterAct (Philadelphia), Cleveland Public Theatre, TheatreSquared, UCSB's Launch Pad, Magic Theatre, Crowded Fire, TheatreFirst, New Conservatory Theater Center, Shotgun Players, and Playwrights Foundation with such writers as Melis Aker, Kevin Artigue, Guillermo Calderón, Christopher Chen, Jeesun Choi, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Gabriel Jason Dean, Yussef El Guindi, Lauren Gunderson, Prince Gomolvilas, Lauren Gunderson, Denmo Ibrahim, MJ Kaufman, Hannah Khalil, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Mona Mansour, Novid Parsi, Baruch Porras Hernandez, Eric Reyes Loo, Nia Akilah Robinson, Betty Shamieh, Caridad Svich, and Lauren Yee, amongst many others. His productions have been Barrymore and Theatre Bay Area Awards recommended and nominated; appeared on "Best of the Year" lists in San Francisco Chronicle, WBUR, KQED, Bay Area Reporter, and SF Bay Times; and were named as a Critic's Pick for New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and San Francisco Chronicle. In 2023, Evren served as the Interim Artistic Director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he had been the Associate Artistic Director and Director of Artistic Programming since 2019. At OSF, he led the programming of the 2024 Season, secured funding to "save" the 2023 Season, and helped guide the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the devastating Almeda Fire. He oversaw the producing of five repertory seasons -- the 32 productions he's shepherded at OSF include the world premiere of the company's first holiday show, It's Christmas, Carol!; world and West Coast premieres of new works by Kirsten Childs, Mona Mansour, Dominique Morisseau, Qui Nguyen, Karen Zacarias, Amir Nizar Zuabi, and reimagined classics by directors such as Shariffa Ali, Lili-Anne Brown, Shana Cooper, Nataki Garrett, Kent Gash, Henry Godinez, Tiffany Nichole Greene, Rosa Joshi, and Dawn Monique Williams, amongst many others. He annually led an artistic core of more than 100 artists, and 10 full-time staff members. Evren has received the TITAN Award from Theatre Bay Area, and was named an inaugural National Director’s Fellow for the O’Neill, NNPN, the Kennedy Center, and SDCF and received a “Theatre Worker You Should Know” feature in American Theatre Magazine. He has served on selection committees for Theatre Communications Group, National Endowment for the Arts, Zellerbach Foundation, NNPN Showcase of New Plays, Magic Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, Playwrights' Center, and Middle East America Initiative. Evren is a graduate of Princeton University.
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