The Drama and Theatre of Annie Baker

In the first book-length study of Annie Baker, one of the most critically acclaimed playwrights in the United States today and winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur -genius- grant, Amy Muse analyzes Baker-s plays and other work. These include The Flick, John, The Antipodes, the Shirley Vermont plays, and her adaptation of Uncle Vanya. Muse illuminates their intellectual and ethical themes and issues by contextualizing them with the other works of theatre, art, theology, and psychology that Baker read while writing them.

Through close discussions of Baker-s work, this book immerses readers in her use of everyday language, her themes of loneliness, desire, empathy, and storytelling, and her innovations with stage time. Enriched by a foreword from Baker-s former professor, playwright Mac Wellman, as well as essays by four scholars, Thomas Butler, Jeanmarie Higgins, Katherine Weiss, and Harrison Schmidt, this is a companionable