Annie Baker

Annie Baker (born April 1981) is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017.

Baker's family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Baker was born, but soon moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where she grew up and where her father, Conn Nugent, was an administrator for the Five Colleges consortium and her mother Linda Baker was a psychology doctoral student.

Her brother is author Benjamin Baker Nugent.

Baker graduated from the Department of Dramatic Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Body Awareness, her first play produced Off-Broadway, was staged by the Atlantic Theater Company in May and June 2008.

The play featured JoBeth Williams.

She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting from Brooklyn College in 2009.

One of her early jobs was as a guest-wrangler helping to oversee contestants on the reality-television program The Bachelor.

She is married to Nico Baumbach, with whom she has one child.

Her brother-in-law is Noah Baumbach.

Circle Mirror Transformation premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in October 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play and Performance.

This marked the fifth time that Baker and Gold worked together, starting with Circle Mirror Transformation in 2009.

The play is set in a bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Aliens, which premiered Off-Broadway at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in April 2010, was a finalist for the 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and shared the 2010 Obie Award for Best New American Play with Circle Mirror Transformation.

In October and November 2010, three Boston theatre companies produced Baker's three plays that are set in the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont: Circle Mirror Transformation, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company, Body Awareness, produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company, and The Aliens, produced by Company One.

Baker teaches playwriting at New York University, Barnard College, and in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.

She is also on the faculty of the Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA in Playwriting program of Hunter College.

Her adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya premiered at the Soho Repertory Theatre in June 2012, running through August 26, and was called a "funky, fresh new production" by The New York Times reviewer.

Directed by Sam Gold, the cast featured Reed Birney (as Vanya), Maria Dizzia, Georgia Engel, Peter Friedman, Michael Shannon (as Astrov), Rebecca Schull and Merritt Wever (as Sonya).

Michael Shannon and Merritt Wever received the 2012 Joe A. Callaway Award for their performances.

The Flick premiered at Playwrights Horizons in March 2013, and received the Obie Award for Playwriting in 2013.

The Flick won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2016 Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play.

John opened Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre on July 22, 2015 (previews).

It was directed by Sam Gold and starred Georgia Engel and Lois Smith.

The play ran to September 6.

Time ranked it at No. 8 on its list of Top Ten Plays and Musicals for 2015.

It is No. 8 in The Hollywood Reporter 's "Best New York Theater of 2015".

The New York Times wrote that the play is a "...haunting and haunted meditation on topics she has made so singularly her own: the omnipresence of loneliness in human life, and the troubled search for love and lasting connection."

John was nominated for the 2016 Lucille Lortel Awards, Outstanding Play; Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play (Georgia Engel); Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Lois Smith); Outstanding Scenic Design (Mimi Lien); and Outstanding Lighting Design (Mark Barton).

John received six 2016 Drama Desk Award nominations: Outstanding Play; Outstanding Actress in a Play (Georgia Engel); Outstanding Director of a Play; Outstanding Set Design for a Play (Mimi Lien); Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play (Mike Barton); and Outstanding Sound Design in a Play (Bray Poor).

John won the 2016 Obie Awards for Performance for Georgia Engel and a Special Citations: Collaboration, for Annie Baker, Sam Gold and the design team.

Baker's The Antipodes premiered Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre Company with previews on April 4, 2017; it opened officially on April 23, directed by Lila Neugebauer.

The cast featured Phillip James Brannon, Josh Charles, Josh Hamilton, Danny Mastrogiorgio, Danny McCarthy, Emily Cass McDonnell, Brian Miskell, Will Patton, and Nicole Rodenburg.

The engagement was extended to June 4.

In September 2023, Baker's "weird and great new play," Infinite Life, opened at Off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company directed by James Macdonald and featuring Christina Kirk, Mia Katigbak, Kristine Nielsen, Brenda Pressley, Marylouise Burke, and Pete Simpson.

In July 2017, Baker was among 60 artists who signed an open letter organized by the group Adalah-NY that called on Lincoln Center to cancel performances of a play sponsored by the Israeli government and based on a novel by David Grossman.

In an open letter to President Biden in 2023, she, along with other Jewish American writers, called for a ceasefire.

John opened in the West End at the National Theatre in January 2018.

It was directed by James Macdonald, and starred Marylouise Burke (Mertis) and June Watson (Genevieve).

Andy Propst of Time Out ranked it the 40th best play ever written, and it made a 2019 list by The Independent.