After graduating from high school in 1987, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was a member of Off-Off Campus, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1991.
Auburn spent two years in the Juilliard School's playwriting program, studying under the noted dramatists Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang.
The plays, called "cockeyed and engaging little one-act comedies", were presented at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, Tucson, Arizona, in January and February 2008.
[7] 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.
[8] 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.
[9] 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.
[10][11] 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.