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Body Awareness

Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy  /  2w, 2m

Annie Baker's off-Broadway debut is a tart, funny and heartbreaking look at a contemporary family as they wrestle with issues of communication, expression and the human body.

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    2w, 2m
  • Duration
    Duration
    90 minutes
  • Suggested Use
    • Monologues
    • Scene Work
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Accolades
Accolades
  • Nominee: 2009 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play
    Nominee: 2008 Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award

Details

Summary
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 photographer 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 autism spectrum disorder, struggles to express himself physically – with heartbreaking results.
History
Body Awareness premiered off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company on May 28, 2008. Directed by Karen Kohlhaas, the production featured JoBeth Williams, Mary McCann, Jonathan Clem and Peter Friedman.
JOYCE – 55
JARED – 21, her son
PHYLLIS – 45, her girlfriend
FRANK BONITATIBUS – 59
  • Time Period Contemporary, Present Day
  • Setting A kitchen. A bedroom. A blackboard.
  • Features Contemporary Costumes/Street Clothes
  • Additional Features No Intermission
  • Duration 90 minutes
  • Cautions
    • Mild Adult Themes

Media

“An impressive and occasionally beautiful meditation on the mysteries of being moved.” – The New Yorker

“An engaging new comedy by a young playwright with a probing, understated voice... Its quiet rewards steal up on you.” – The New York Times

Body Awareness is indeed very funny, skewering everything from the professor’s pretensions to the blunt sex talk Frank delivers to Jared... Baker’s dialogue is tart and personable, with just enough unexpected twists in the characterizations to keep you leaning forward... [Baker] has a lovely ability to comically mock types and trends while exposing the raw seams in her characters.” – The Washington Post

Editor's Pick! “The deepest and richest of the three plays by Annie Baker that make up the Shirley, VT Plays Festival.” – The Boston Globe

“Sexuality's endless capacity to make us miserable is the keynote of Annie Baker's gentle satire, which takes just four actors and 90 minutes to spin an astonishingly complex web of emotions and ideas... Body Awareness is a smart, modest work about ordinary, flawed people, grasping for connection, but none of it feels small, thanks to Baker's sharp ear for the deeply painful - and funny - longings squirming under her characters' dialogue. What a beautiful start to a young playwright's theatrical body of work.” – Time Out New York

Music

  • Musical Style N/A (Not a musical)
  • Vocal DemandsN/A (Not a musical)
  • Chorus Size N/A (Not a musical)

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

    Please submit a license request to determine availability.

Scripts

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Authors

Annie Baker

Annie Baker's full-length plays include The Flick (Playwrights Horizons, OBIE Award for Playwriting, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Circle Mirror Transformation (Playwrights Horizons, OBIE Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best Play), The Aliens (Ratt ...
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