Proof by David Auburn

STUDENTS:Antúnez, Natalia

Avila, LisbetCampo, Lucía

Díaz, MarinaMonsalve, Micaela

After having read ACT 1,• What can you tell us about the author?

• What do you think he looks like?

• What is his relationship with Maths?

DAVID AUBURN(1969 - )

LET’S PLAY and BET with

David Auburn

. 3 GROUPS OF STUDENTS: • There are 6 exercises related to David Auburn’s

biography

• Each group will be given candies which will be used to bet.

• Each group will participate at the same time. They will see first the statement to complete, and before reading the options, they have to decide how many candies they will bet (minimum 1)

• If you give a correct answer (maximum 2 minutes), you get the double. If you don´t, you lose your candies.

• Chicago, Illinois

• Ohio

• Manhattan, New York

He was raised in…

• He was born on November 30, 1969, Chicago,

Illinois to Mark and Sandy k. Auburn

• He was raised in Ohio until 1982 when his family

moved to Arkansas where he would spend the

latter half of his life.

• Currently, he is living in Manhattan, New York

• Maths

• Political Philosophy

• Literature

After graduating from high school in 1987, he returned to Chicago at UCA to study…

He studied political philosophy at the University of Chicago. While at university, he wrote scripts for the performance group Off-Off Campus and began reviewing theater performances for the Maroon, Chicago’s student newspaper. As a theater critic, and learned more about the Chicago theatre scene.

 He also studied  formal mathematical education ended with calculus.

• An English teacher

• A Mathematician

• A Journalist

His mother was an assistant deputy director of the Division of Aging and Adult Services, and

his father was …

• His father was an English professor at Ohio State University. Later, he became the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro and then Vice President for Planning and Management Support of the University of Arkansas System.

After graduating in 1991, he was offered a

writing fellowship in LA. In 1994, he was

accepted into the Julliard School’s

prestigious playwriting program. He

worked with such established playwrights as

Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman,

and continued polishing his plays and

monologues.

• Skyscraper and What Do You Believe About The Future?

• Proof and The Lake House

• The Girl in the Park

His first literary works were:

His first full-length play was Skyscraper, which

ran off Broadway in 1997. His short play, What Do

You Believe About The Future? appeared

in Harper's Magazine and has since been adapted

for the screen.

Auburn’s work often revolves around death and

tragedy but with warmth, humor, and strong

characterization.

• The Lake House and The Girl in the Park

• The Secret Life of Bees and Eat, Pray and Love

• Before Midnight and The Columnist

He participated somehow in the movies:

• He wrote the screenplay for the movie The Lake House, released by Warner Bros. in 2006.

• In 2007, he made his directorial debut with The Girl in the Park, for which he also wrote the screenplay

Now,

• Proof won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play,  Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2001 and the Kesselring Prize.

• Proof premiered in 2000, and that year Auburn became the most successful young playwright on Broadway. In the next few years, Proof became one of the most popular new plays both in the US and abroad

• Because he studied Maths

• Because he was interested in the inheritance of mental illness

• Because he was interested in family relationships based on common interests.

What do you think the author chose three out of the four characters to be mathematicians?

• This is taken from an interview.

• “I didn't start with the idea about writing about math. I had this idea that the sisters who would start finding over something after their dad's death. Since I also had this idea about someone who was worried that they would inheriting their parent's mental illness, I kind of went looking for the thing that the sisters would find, and it seemed to me that a scientific document or a mathematical document could be really interesting.”

• “In some interesting way, there is a historical fact that a number of famous mathematicians have suffered from mental illness kind of gave me the bridge to the other idea about someone worried about their own mental state. So it just seemed to fit the story that I wanted to tell.”

• Auburn said that “in any human situation there is the potential for humor and pathos, both. I like stories that surprise you with sudden shifts of mood or tone, so that as an audience member you never quite settle into complacency.”

A final comment…

WORKS CITED

• http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5932

• http://otium.uchicago.edu/articles/auburn_q+a.html