David Auburn is an American playwright. His first full-length play, Skyscraper, a comedy set in Chicago, was produced Off-Broadway (Greenwich House). His short play, What Do You Believe About The Future? appeared in Harper's Magazine and was adapted for the screen (Montgomery Playhouse).

Auburn is best known for his play Proof, which won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Auburn adapted it into a film of the same name (Walter Kerr Theatre). His play, The Columnist, had its world premiere in a production by the Manhattan Theatre Club on Broadway (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre).

Auburn won the Helen Merrill Playwriting/New York Critic's Circle Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

He wrote the screenplay for the Warner Brothers movie, The Lake House, and made his directorial debut with The Girl in the Park, for which he also wrote the screenplay.