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Young Jean Lee

She // Her // Hers

Playwright and Theater Director

Brooklyn, New York

Photo of Young Jean Lee.

Photo by Blaine Davis.

Young Jean Lee is a writer, director, and filmmaker who has been called “the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation” by the New York Times and “one of the best experimental playwrights in America” by Time Out New York. She has written and directed ten shows in New York with Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, and toured her work to over thirty cities around the world. Her plays have been published by Theatre Communications Group, Samuel French, and Dramatists Play Service. She is currently under commission from Lincoln Center Theater and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and has written a screenplay commission for Plan B/Paramount Pictures. Her first short film, Here Come the Girls, was presented at The Locarno International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and BAMcinemaFest, and she has released an album with her band, Future Wife.Lee is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two OBIE Awards, a Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a PEN Literary Award, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Doris Duke Artist Residency, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, and the ZKB Patronage Prize of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel.

Donor -This award was generously made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 01.04.2025

Photo of theater work written by Young Jean Lee.

We're Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee. Written by Young Jean Lee and directed by Paul Lazar. Joe's Pub, New York, NY. Benedict Kupstas, Young Jean Lee, Nick Jenkins.

Courtesy of Blaine Davis.

Photo of theater work by Young Jean Lee.

Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven by Young Jean Lee. HERE Arts Center, New York, NY. Jennifer Lim, Becky Yamamoto, Jun Sky Kim, Haerry Kim.

Photo by Carl Skutch.

Photo of theater work by Young Jean Lee.

Untitled Feminist Show, conceived and directed by Young Jean Lee with Faye Driscoll, Morgan Gould, and the original cast.

Photo by Julieta Cervantes.