David Auburn, AB’91, is a Juilliard-trained playwright, screenwriter, and director. His play Proof (2000), won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play and 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Proof follows the grieving daughter of a brilliant mathematician as she tries to find her intellectual footing after his death and worries she has inherited his mental illness. A 2026 Broadway revival of the play starred Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle as daughter and father.
Among Auburn’s other works are The Adventures of Augie March (2019), based on the first novel of fellow UChicago alumnus Saul Bellow, EX’39 and premiering at the University’s Court Theatre; Georgetown (2019); Lost Lake (2014); Summer, 1976 (2023); The Columnist (2012); and Skyscraper (1997). His works for film include the 2005 screen adaptation of Proof, films The Lake House (2006) and The Girl in the Park (2007).
Auburn delivered the 2026 Class Day speech for UChicago’s 540th Convocation, in which he described the deep influence on his writing of UChicago’s style of self-learning and questioning and of his experience as part of the improv group Off-Off Campus. In addition to his Pulitzer and Tony awards, Auburn also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, and the Kesselring Prize for Playwriting.