Annie Baker's The Flick Wins 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Annie Baker’s The Flick has been awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Described by the Pulitzer jury as a “thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage,” the play was chosen over finalists The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence by Madeleine George and Fun Home, which features a book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori. Baker will receive a prize of $10,000.

Set in a rundown movie theater in central Massachusetts, The Flick tells the story of three underpaid employees who mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35 millimeter film projectors in the state. Their battles and heartbreaks, more gripping than the lackluster second-run movies on screen, play out in the empty theater aisles. Directed by Sam Gold, The Flick ran at Playwrights Horizons February 15, 2013 through April 7, 2013. At the time, the production caused some controversy among subscribers for its length and challenges.

Baker’s plays include Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens and Body Awareness and an adaptation of Uncle Vanya. She is a member of New Dramatists, the MCC Playwrights Coalition and is a Residency Five Playwright at the new Signature Theatre. Her  recent honors include a United States Artists Collins Fellowship, New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Lilly Award, a Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship and a Master Artist Residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. An anthology of her work, The Vermont Plays, has been published by TCG.