Anni Baker has created a fascinating exploration of life in the armed forces, as it has been experienced by millions of men, women, and children over the past six decades. Her book examines the factors that shape military service and military culture, from grueling training exercises to sexual relations with local women, from overseas duty to the peculiar life of the military "brat." The book begins with an examination of the enlistment process, follows the military lifecycle through career decisions, promotions, raising families, and retirement, explores the impact of war on military society, and ends with a discussion of the place of the armed forces in the United States. A wide variety of sources were used in this study, including contemporary scholarship, government and military records, public media, and, most important, interviews and written materials from military personnel, retirees, family members, and civilian employees. Using a lively and readable style, Baker blends clear explanations of elements of military life, information on the development of military society, and the voices of those who serve into an insightful account of this fascinating subculture. It is the author's view that not only is study of the U.S. military a valuable undertaking in itself, but in addition it will enrich our perspective on civilian life and culture in the United States. The military is a distinct society based on a set of common values that are sometimes, though not always, at odds with those of civilian society. The extent to which active duty personnel, family members and civilians internalize these values dictates their comfort with military life and their choice of a military career.Through a discussion of life in the military, Baker examines how the values, traditions and norms of the armed forces are articulated and shared, how they influence the individual and the institution, and what their role is in American society as a whole.

Over the past 60 years, the U.S. armed forces have created a web of military bases all over the world, from Australia to Iceland to Saudi Arabia. This is the aspect of military service that the majority of soldiers know and remember. Interaction between U.S. personnel and local populations is almost a given, and it is inevitable that the American and host communities will influence each other in numerous ways. This book looks at the history and impact of American military communities overseas. It discusses how U.S. bases affected economic and political life in the host communities, how host societies shape the profile and activities of military communities, and what happens when relations break down. Through case studies of communities around the world, Baker shows that the U.S. armed forces have had a surprisingly large impact both positive and negative on the affairs of many (but not all) host societies, including economic revitalization, cultural change, and, sometimes, tragic social consequences. In not a few cases, the U.S. military presence has become politically controversial on a national level. On the other hand, many host nations have successfully circumscribed the activities of military communities, rendering their potentially disruptive presence almost invisible.

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.

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

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.

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

This intimate, immersive new adaptation of Chekhov's classic from critically-acclaimed playwright Annie Baker, author of Body Awareness, Circle Mirror Transformation, and The Flick, brings colloquial language to this internationaly beloved story of human relationships and yearning. Written with the "goal of creating a version that sounds to our contemporary American ears the way the play sounded to Russian ears during the play's first productions in the provinces in 1898," Ms. Bake

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.

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 cafe. 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.

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."--"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."--"The New York Times"
"This hypnotic, heartbreaking micro-epic about movies and moving on is irreducibly theatrical."--"Time Out New York"
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. This comedy, by one of the United States' most-produced and highly regarded young playwrights, premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in winter of 2013, directed by Sam Gold. "The Flick" was awarded the coveted 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 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 a fresh, Off-Broadway-hit 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 internationally. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at the Signature Theatre.

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

"(Baker's) heartbreaking works of staggering focus have actually rescued realism from the aesthetic scrap heap" -- Helen Shaw, "Time Out New York"

"Baker has as natural an ear for how people talk--and shut up--as any American playwright of recent years... She is the aural equivalent of a good photo-realist painter, someone who makes us see the quotidian in such heightened detail that it looks almost shockingly new." --Ben Brantley, "New York Times"

"Baker is a writer whose plays have a quiet, hypnotic charm, a grace and humor. She's able to take ordinary, low-key situations--a small-town acting class, guys wasting time in an alley behind a cafe--and fill them with gentle comedy, generosity of spirit and an eye (and ear) for the foibles that make us all so hopelessly human." --"Village Voice"

With her quartet of plays set in small-town Vermont, twenty-nine-year-old Annie Baker is making a big impact on the American theater. "Circle Mirror Transformation," which takes place in a summer acting class and alternates between theater exercises and moments between classmates, shares the 2010 OBIE Award for Best Play with "The Aliens," Baker's "gentle and extraordinarily beautiful new play" ("The New York Times") that explores weighty topics of love and death through the easy banter of the slackers behind the local coffee shop. Also included in "The Vermont Plays" is "Body Awareness," set during Body Awareness Week at the local college, and "Nocturama," in which a twenty-six-year-old Brooklynite returns to live with his mom and video game obsessed stepfather.

Annie Baker's plays include "Body Awareness," "Circle Mirror Transformation," "The Aliens," "The End of the Middle Ages," and "Nocturama." Her honors include a New York Drama Critics Circle Special Citation, a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, and a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship.

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