Auburn wrote several short plays, collectively grouped as
Fifth Planet and Other Plays. The plays, called "cockeyed and engaging little one-act comedies", were presented at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, Tucson, Arizona, in January and February 2008. The plays are:
Fifth Planet,
Miss You,
Are You Ready,
Damage Control,
Three Monologues,
What Do You Believe About The Future? and
We Had A Very Good Time.
Fifth Planet is a two-person play with 44 short scenes.
Miss You is a "telephone play about love and unfaithfulness"
We Had A Very Good Time follows a married couple at the end of a vacation in an unnamed foreign country. which won the 2001
Tony Award for Best Play, as well as the 2001
Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He adapted it into a
film, which was released in 2005. His play
The Columnist had its world premiere in a production by the
Manhattan Theatre Club on
Broadway, running from April 3, 2012, through June 3, 2012 and starring
John Lithgow with
Boyd Gaines,
Margaret Colin,
Stephen Kunken,
Marc Bonan,
Grace Gummer, and
Brian J. Smith, with direction by
Daniel Sullivan.
Lost Lake premiered Off-Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at New York City Center—Stage 1, running from November 11 to December 21, 2014. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, the two-person cast starred
John Hawkes and
Tracie Thoms. The play was developed at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and presented at the Sullivan Project at the University of Illinois in February 2014. The first reading of
Lost Lake was done at the O'Neill Center Rose Theater Barn July 26–27, 2013, directed by
Wendy C. Goldberg and starring Frank Wood and Elsa Davis. Auburn has been awarded the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and a
Guggenheim Fellowship. He received the
Kesselring Prize in 2000 for
Proof; the prize is given to a playwright who shows the most promise and comes with a $10,000 monetary award. Following
Proof, he wrote the screenplay for the movie
The Lake House, released by
Warner Bros. in 2006. In 2007, he made his film directorial debut with
The Girl in the Park, for which he also wrote the screenplay. He has also directed stage works. He directed the play
Sick by Zayd Dohrn at the
Berkshire Theatre Festival from August 18 to September 6, 2009. He directed
Anna Christie by
Eugene O'Neill at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in July 2013. He directed the play
Side Effects by
Michael Weller in June and July 2011 at the Off-Broadway MCC Theater. ==Personal life==