Professional slackers and best friends KJ and Jasper spend their days talking music and Bukowski outside the back of a small coffee shop in Vermont. Seventeen-year-old Evan is eking out his summer working at the café. When he meets the two young men he is irresistibly drawn to their world of magic mushrooms, philosophical musings and great-bands-that never-were.One of the freshest voices to come out of America in recent years, Annie Baker's gentle, engaging and deeply funny play introduces two cult heroes in the shape of KJ and Jasper, and puts modern day America under the microscope. What happened to the generation who never grew up?The Aliens opened at the Bush Theatre, London in September 2010. The play's world premiere was held at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, New York, in April of the same year.
Thanks, you guys. I think this was a really, really great start.Five lost people come together at a community centre class to try and find some meaning in their lives. Counting to ten can be harder than you think. Over six tangled weeks their lives become knotted together in this tender and funny play.Annie Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play. It was voted one of the top ten plays of 2009 by the New York Times, Time Out and the New Yorker. It premiered in the UK as part of the Royal Court's Theatre Local strand of site specific productions across London.
2m, 2f, Comic Drama / Interior and Areas It's "Body Awareness" week on a Vermont college campus and Phyllis, the organizer, and her partner, Joyce, are hosting one of the guest artists in their home, Frank, a painter famous for his female nude portraits. Both his presence in the home and his chosen subject instigate tension from the start. Phyllis is furious at his depictions, but Joyce is actually rather intrigued by the whole thing, even going so far as to contemplate posing for him. As Joyce and Phyllis bicker, Joyce's adult son, who may or may not have Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to express himself physically with heartbreaking results. " An engaging new comedy by a young playwright with a probing, understated voice. [...] Its quiet rewards steal up on you." -New York Times
WINNER! 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner! 2013 OBIE Award Playwriting Winner! 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Nominee! 2013 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Play Nominee! 2013 Lucille Lortel Award Outstanding Play Finalist! 2013 New York Critics Circle Award Best Play In a run-down movie theater in central Massachusetts three underpaid employees mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35 millimeter film projectors in the state. Their tiny battles and not
The week after Thanksgiving. A Bed & Breakfast in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. A cheerful innkeeper. A young couple struggling to stay together. Thousands of inanimate objects watching.A simple enough description but Annie Baker's fascinating play takes a look at what theatre can be and builds a world all its own. Baker's hyper-realism bleeds into the eerily supernatural in this quiet tale where actors and audiences alike delve into ideas of self mortality and the solitu
Echoes of the Soul, is an insightful collection of poetrythat speaks of experiences, which connects us all.Themes of love, loss, hope and nature convey the universality of emotions and the highs and lows in life we all face.Beautiful illustrations resonate with the author's poignant themes, making this book a meaningful keepsake and gift for all the beautiful and receptive souls of the world.
Winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama "Funny, heartbreaking, sly and unblinking..."The Flick" may be the best argument anyone has yet made for the continued necessity and profound uniqueness of theater." --Jesse Green, "New York" "Hilarious and ineffably touching...Ms. Baker's peerless aptitude for exploring how people grope their way toward a sense of equanimity, even as they learn to accept disappointment, is among the things that make her such a gifted writer...This lovingly observed play will sink deep into your consciousness." --Charles Isherwood, "New York Times" "This hypnotic, heartbreaking micro-epic about movies and moving on is irreducibly theatrical." --David Cote, "TimeOut New York" In a rundown movie theater in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees sweep up popcorn in the empty aisles and tend to one of the last thirty-five-millimeter projectors in the state. With keen insight and a ceaseless attention to detail, "The Flick" pays tribute to the power of movies and paints a heartbreaking portrait of three characters and their working lives. A critical hit when it premiered Off-Broadway, this comedy, by one of the country's most produced and highly regarded young playwrights, was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Obie Award for Playwriting and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. ANNIE BAKER'S works include "The Aliens" (Obie Award), " Body Awareness," "Circle Mirror Transformation" (Obie Award), "Nocturama," and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steinberg Playwright Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre.
In a run-down movie theater in central Massachusetts, the tiny battles and not-so-tiny heartbreaks of three underpaid employees play out in the empty aisles, becoming more gripping than the lackluster, second-run movies on screen. With keen insight and a finely-tuned comic eye, "The Flick" is a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world.
"Drawing on the immediacy of overheard conversation, she has pioneered a style of theatre made to seem as untheatrical as possible, while using the tools of the stage to focus audience attention. . . . To watch Baker's work is to be drawn into a world that feels as unplotted as real life . . . but that breaks abruptly into surreal transcendence."--Nathan Heller, New Yorker"Ms. Baker, one of the freshest and most talented dramatists to emerge Off-Broadway in the past decade, writes with tenderness and keen insight about the way people make messes of their lives--and the lives of people they care about." --Charles Isherwood, The New York TimesThe latest work by the "funny, empathetic genius" (New Yorker) Annie Baker, The Antipodes is the brilliant follow-up to her critically-acclaimed play John and Pulitzer Prize winner The Flick. Baker's uniquely shrewd writing style shines through in this much anticipated Off-Broadway hit, complete with her signature hyper-realistic depiction of humanity and how we cope with the surprises and pitfalls of life.Annie Baker's works include John, The Flick (Pulitzer Prize), The Aliens (Obie Award), Body Awareness, Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award), Nocturama, and an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theatres in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Steinberg Playwright Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre in New York.
A funny and profound meditation on the complexity of chronic illness and the ache of desire.At a clinic in Northern California, five women recline on patio lounge chairs. They are fasting, drinking only water or juice in the hope that the deprivation will help their bodies begin to heal from a litany of afflictions--cancers and autoimmune disorders and thyroid conditions and mysterious infections. To distract themselves from the near-constant pain they are in, they philosophize and swap book recommendations, confide intimate family stories and share hopes for their future recoveries. Over the course of several days, the clinic becomes a purgatorial space, where prolonged hunger and suffering seem to warp time itself. The women's meandering discussions slowly accumulate a powerful emotional resonance, leading to deep and troubling questions: is there any meaning to be found in pain, or is it merely something to be endured? Can physical intimacy be an antidote to suffering, or is it only a brief distraction? An engrossing and compassionate play that resists easy answers to the problem of what it means to reside in a body that fails you.
'I said no one should ever try to recreate this. This is agony in its purest form.' Five women in Northern California lie outside on chaises longues and philosophise. But can you ever communicate what it feels like to be inside your own body? Annie Baker's play Infinite Life is a surprisingly funny inquiry into the complexity of suffering, and what it means to desire in a body that's failing. It was first produced in a co-production between the National Theatre, London, and Atlantic Theater Company, New York, and performed at both theatres in 2023, directed by James Macdonald.
Annie Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about three cinema attendants - 'Wondrous, devastating, hilarious, and infinitely touching. A play to be treasured' New York Times. In a run-down movie theatre in central Massachusetts, three underpaid employees mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35-millimetre film projectors in the state. Their tiny battles and not-so-tiny heartbreaks play out in the empty aisles, becoming more gripping than the lacklustre, second-run movies on screen. With keen insight and a finely tuned ear for comedy, The Flick is a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world. The Flick arrived at the National Theatre, London, in 2016, direct from New York, where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It went on to win Best New Play at the 2016 Critics' Circle Awards.
The week after Thanksgiving. A bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A cheerful innkeeper. A young couple struggling to stay together. Thousands of inanimate objects, watching. John, an uncanny play by Annie Baker, was first seen Off-Broadway in 2015. The play had its UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2018, in a production directed by James Macdonald. Annie Baker’s other plays include Pulitzer Prize-winning The Flick, The Antipodes, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens, and an adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. She has won many other awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Grant.
A group of people sit around a table theorising, categorising and telling stories. Their real purpose is never quite clear, but they continue on, searching for the monstrous. Part satire, part sacred rite, Annie Baker's play The Antipodes asks what value stories have for a world in crisis. First seen at Signature Theatre, New York, in 2017, the play had its UK premiere at the National Theatre, London, in 2019. 'The most original and significant American dramatist since August Wilson' Mark Lawson, The Guardian
Annie Baker s "John" is so good on so many levels that it casts a unique and brilliant light By not rushing things by letting the characters develop as gradually and inevitably as rain or snowfall Baker returns us to the naturalistic but soulful theatre that many of her contemporaries and near-contemporaries have disavowed in their rush to be 'postmodern.' "New Yorker" "John," like any great play, raises a lot of questions not just about the human experience, but also about the state of contemporary theater, it doesn t provide many answers; it is not the playwright s responsibility to do so. In John she co-opts the viewer for her own aesthetic use, heightening the tension onstage and deepening the quiet relationships between her characters. Through John, she displays an understanding that the audience is part of the theatrical experience, an inevitability as certain as a Chekhovian gun. "Slate" "The week after Thanksgiving. A bed & breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A cheerful innkeeper. A young couple struggling to stay together. Thousands of inanimate objects, watching." The description by the playwright of the setting is simple, but Annie Baker s compelling new work is revolutionary in theme and structure and challenges the boundaries of what theatre can be. A kind of magical super-realism permeates throughout this quietly evolving tale, with both the actors and the audience fully vested together in a mesmerizing exploration of the frailty and loneliness of human experience. "
