Lauren Weedman is an award-winning comedic actress, playwright, and author who works extensively in theater, film and television. She studied Acting at DePaul Theater School and Feminist Film Studies at Indiana University. She left Indiana and moved to Amsterdam to study Experimental Theater. Working with former members of Joseph Chaikins Open Theater and Ariana’s Mounshkind Teatre Du Soleil. After studying, writing and performing Theater in Amsterdam for five years, Lauren returned to the States with her first play HOMECOMING which began as a 15-minute performance art piece at On the Boards and ultimately grew into a full-length show, touring with the Seattle RepertoryTheatre. HOMECOMING premiered off-Broadway at Westside Theatre and had a successful six month run. The New York Times said of Lauren and HOMECOMING, “Like Bob Newhart in his early stand-up routines, she's particularly good at making her points – and making us feel clever. Most important, she's just plain funny, physically and verbally.” Homecoming was featured at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and was published in “Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2002.”
Lauren has written and performed over 14 full length, multi-character, solo plays including Homecoming, Amsterdam, If Ornaments Had Lips, Huu, Rash, Wreckage, Bust, No… You Shut Up, People's Republic of Portland and , Lauren Weedman Doesn't Live Here Anymore, her second play commission from Portland Center Stage.
Lauren’s work Bust was commissioned by Seattle’s Empty Space Theatre and was based on her her work as a volunteer with the organization “Friends Outside” a service to inmates at the California Correctional Institute for women. She toured Bust in the US and it was named “Best in the Arts” by Seattle Weekly, Seattle Times, and Boise Weekly. She was a finalist for the Alpert Award of the Arts and received a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony.
Her essays and stories have been published in New York Magazine, Jezebel, Glamour, The Stranger, and aired on the Dinner Party Download and Unfictional. Weedman’s first book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body: (Tales from a Life of Cringe), is a collection of comedic essays and was named by Kirkus Review as a top ten Indie book for 2007.
Her latest book, Miss Fortune: Fresh Perspectives on Having it All from Someone Who is NOT OKAY, was a LA Times Bestseller, published by Random House. Kirkus Reviews called MISS FORTUNE a “winning essay collection,” and LA Weekly wrote of Weedman, “She’s already succeeded in showing millennials how memoir writing is done – with lots of well-digested experiences, an original voice and a scathing wit…”
Among her many television roles, Lauren played Doris on HBO’s Looking, and appeared as Horny Patty on HBO’s Hung. She was a correspondent on The Daily Show, and also appeared in Will and Grace, True Blood, United States of Tara, Reno 911!, Curb Your Enthusiasm, New Girl, 2 Broke Girls, and Arrested Development. Film credits include Looking:The Movie, Joshy, The Little Hours, Wilson, Imagine That, Date Night, and Judd Apatow’s The Five Year Engagement. Currently she’s working on Abbott Elementary and Hacks as Mayor Jo.
She speaks on creativity around the country as well as teaching and has been the host of the popular Moth Storytelling Slam for the past 15 years.