Press

“A strong kick-off to the Shirley, VT Plays Festival! The town is fictional, but the emotions are plenty real. An awful lot gets expressed in a sneakily affecting production featuring a skilled cast that gives poignant voice to five lost souls.” — The Boston Globe

“Big-hearted, magnetic, and real. There’s no weak link! It’s easy to see how Baker has won a couple of Obies and been nominated for numerous other accolades. If Circle Mirror Transformation is any barometer of her talents, we’re in for a great festival.” — Boston Herald

“Body Awareness features a quartet of outstanding performers — Paula Plum, Adrianne Krstansky, Richard Snee, and newcomer Gregory Pember — who meet one definition of good acting: They don’t seem as if they’re acting at all.” —The Boston Globe

“A rare treat to behold….[Playwright Annie] Baker should thank SpeakEasy Stage Company for what they’ve done with [her play].” —Boston Metro

“Baker’s play will have you laughing one moment and tearing up the next.” —Boston Herald

Annie Baker and her Shirley, VT Plays Come to Boston
From New York Times, Nov. 10, 2010: “The quiet that pulses everywhere in this fictional town, the creation of the seriously gifted young playwright Annie Baker, is the kind that descends among people when words feel inadequate. In Ms. Baker’s small, vast and meticulously detailed universe, words are by their very nature inadequate. So even when people are talking up a storm, you’re conscious of the void that separates them, filled with frustrated thoughts and hopes of connection.”

Last Train for Shirley, VT
From Harvard Arts Beat, Nov. 19, 2010: “If you missed the train leaving for Shirley, Vermont, the fictional town of playwright Annie Baker, there’s still time to get onboard.”

The Shirley, VT Plays Festival on the Callie Crossley Show
From WGBH, Nov. 4, 2010: “This fall, three Boston theater companies are teaming up to stage works by Obie-award winning playwright, Annie Baker. The plays are all set in the fictional town of Shirley, VT, a town Annie Baker modeled in part on her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. Today, our arts commentator, Alicia Anstead talks with the three directors participating in the festival about Annie Baker’s style, and the process of bringing her works to the stage.”

Boston Theater Now: Three Roads to Shirley VT
From WGBH, Oct. 18, 2010: “Three of the Hub’s prolific theatre companies — Company One, Huntington Theatre Company, and SpeakEasy Stage Company — have come together to present The Shirley, VT Plays, three of rising star Annie Baker’s works based in the fictitious Shirley, VT. Greater Boston‘s Jared Bowen sits down with the directors of each of these plays to discuss the world of Annie Baker, and this novel approach to theatre presentation. Peter DuBois, artistic director for the Huntington, joins as a special guest.”

Audio Slideshow: Circle Mirror Transformation at the Wimberly Theatre
From BU Today, Oct. 21, 2010: “The fictional hamlet of Shirley, VT, is populated by characters we come to know and feel for in Annie Baker’s three plays about the small town…”

Fictional Town Sets Annie Baker’s Plays in Motion
From the Boston Globe, Oct. 10, 2010: “Annie Baker would like some quiet, please, and she is entirely willing to specify how much…”

Huntington, SpeakEasy, Company One collaborate on ‘Shirley’ festival
From Community/TAB/Wicked Local Newspapers, Oct. 7, 2010: “Nestled in the rolling green hills of Vermont, there’s a small, unassuming town called Shirley that’s home to the annual Vermont Gourd Festival, Shirley State College, and a thriving community of Cambodian refugees who settled there after fleeing the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in the 1980s…”

Three Companies, One Playwright
From the Boston Globe, Sept. 12, 2010: “Even though Boston theaters are theoretically in competition with one another, there are times when a bit of teamwork makes strategic and artistic sense. This is one of those times…”