Presenting an exciting collaborative festival of
Annie Baker’s “The Shirley, VT Plays”

This fall, SpeakEasy Stage will proudly team up with the Huntington Theatre Company and Company One to produce breakout writer Annie Baker’s first three plays – Circle Mirror Transformation, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company (October 15 – November 14), Body Awareness, produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company (October 22 – November 20), and The Aliens, produced by Company One (October 29 – November 20). All set in the fictional town of Shirley, VT, the plays will run together in the first-ever festival dedicated to the work of this wryly observant young writer. This festival presents a special opportunity to examine the rich and varied lives of a small town filled with humor, good intentions, unintended consequences, and accidental beauty. Audiences will experience three miniature portraits of Shirley, VT, a town not found on any map.

SpeakEasy subscribers have the opportunity to get tickets to Body Awareness as part of their subscription and can purchase tickets to the other plays at a discount. Just use the space on our 2010-2011 subscription order form. Additional tickets to Circle Mirror Transformation are just $40 for SpeakEasy subscribers (reg. $50-$65) and tickets to The Aliens are just $30 (reg. $35-38). Click the "Calendar" tab above for the performance calendar of dates and times.

Learn more about the series at ShirleyVTPlays.com.

Festival Press Release

Here is a description for each of the exciting shows in this festival series:

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION
October 15 – November 14, 2010
at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (Wimberly Theatre)
Produced by the Huntington Theatre Company

When the four students in Marty’s creative drama class experiment with harmless theatre games, hearts are quietly torn apart and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won. Set in the Shirley, Vermont community center, this beautifully crafted new comedy mixes antic sadness and hilarious detail, and became a runaway hit Off Broadway. The New York Times called Circle Mirror Transformation, “Absorbing, unblinking, and sharply funny!” It was twice extended and played to sold-out houses at Playwrights Horizons in Sept. – Nov. 2009 and then remounted and extended once again in Dec. 2009 – Jan. 2010.

BODY AWARENESS
October 22 – November 20, 2010
at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (Roberts Studio Theatre)
Produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company

“Body Awareness Week” on a Vermont college campus is the setting for this smart and touching comedy about ordinary people grasping for connection. Phyllis, the organizer, her partner Joyce and Joyce’s grown son Jared are hosting one of the guest artists in their home, Frank, a photographer famous for his female nude portraits. While Phyllis is outraged by Frank’s photos, Joyce is intrigued enough to consider posing for Frank, sparking a firestorm that could break apart their unconventional family. The New York Times called Body Awareness “an engaging new comedy by a young playwright with a probing understated voice,” and The New Yorker called the play “an impressive and occasionally beautiful meditation on the mysteries of being moved.” Body Awareness was first produced Off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in May 2008.

THE ALIENS
October 29 – November 20, 2010
at the Boston Center for the Arts (Plaza Theatre)
Produced by Company One

In the town of Shirley, two 30-something dropouts hang out by the dumpster behind the coffee shop where they meditate on music, philosophy, shrooms, and Bukowski. When a teenage employee asks them to relocate, these disillusioned young men find the disciple they’ve been waiting for. A beat-tinged, psychotropic journey, Annie Baker’s The Aliens is a funny and heartening look at friendship, ritual, and small town New England. Company One is proud to join the Huntington Theatre Company and SpeakEasy Stage Company in exploring the tiny spaces of our small towns.

 

Octover/November 2010

See the calendar below for dates and times of each of the three plays in the festival. Show titles have been abbreviated as follows:

• "Circle" = "Circle Mirror Transformation" Oct. 15 – Nov. 14, 2010
  at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (Wimberly Theatre)
  Produced by the Huntington Theatre Company
• "Body" = "Body Awareness" Oct. 22 – Nov. 20, 2010
  at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (Roberts Studio Theatre)
  Produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company
• "Aliens" = "The Aliens" Oct. 29 – Nov. 20, 2010
  at the Boston Center for the Arts (Plaza Theatre)
  Produced by Company One

SpeakEasy subscribers, to order your discount tickets to Circle Mirror Transformation and The Aliens, use our online subscription form.

SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT
OCT 10	11	12	13	14	15 8PM: Circle	16 8PM: Circle
17 7PM: Circle	18	19 7:30PM: Circle	20 7:30PM: Circle	21 7:30PM: Circle	22 8PM: Circle, Body	23 2PM: Circle 4PM: Body 8PM: Circle, Body
24 2PM: Circle 3PM: Body 7PM: Circle	25	26 7:30PM: Circle	27 2PM: Circle 7:30PM: Circle, Body	28 7:30PM: Circle, Body	29 8PM: ALL	30 2PM: Circle 4PM: Body, Aliens 8PM: ALL
31 2PM: Circle 3PM: Body 4PM: Aliens	NOV 1	2	3 7:30PM: ALL	4 10AM: Circle 7:30PM: ALL	5 8PM: ALL	6 2PM: Circle 4PM: Body, Aliens 8PM: ALL
7 2PM: Circle 3PM: Body 7PM: Circle 7:30PM: Body	8	9 7:30PM: Circle	10 2PM: Circle 7:30PM: ALL	11 7:30PM: ALL	12 8PM: ALL	13 2PM: Circle 4PM: Body, Aliens 8PM: ALL
14 2PM: Circle 4PM: Aliens 7:30PM: Body	15	16 7:30PM: Body	17 7:30PM: Body, Aliens	18 7:30PM: Body, Aliens	19 8PM: Body, Aliens	20 4PM: Body, Aliens 8PM: Body, Aliens

About the Author

Annie Baker grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her full-length plays include BODY AWARENESS (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright), CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION (Playwrights Horizons, OBIE Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), THE ALIENS (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, OBIE Award for Best New American Play), THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES (commission for Soho Rep) and NOCTURAMA. Her work has also been developed and produced at the Bush Theatre in London, New York Theatre Workshop, MCC, Soho Rep, the Orchard Project, the Ontological-Hysteric, Ars Nova, the Huntington, South Coast Rep, Victory Gardens, Theatre Artaud, the Magic Theater, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab in Utah and Ucross, Wyoming. Annie is a member of New Dramatists, MCC's Playwrights Coalition and EST, and an alumna of Youngblood, Ars Nova's Play Group and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. Recent honors include a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, a Lilly Award, a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions from Center Theatre Group and Playwrights Horizons. MFA, Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College.