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

When four students in Marty's creative drama class experiment with harmless theatre games, hearts are quitely 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.

Part of the Shirley, VT Plays Festival, a landmark collaboration between the Huntington, SpeakEasy Stage Company, and Company One.

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    “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
    “The talented ensemble delivers solid performances! Shirley is a fascinating visit!” — Boston Metro
    “A superb, pooignant, and inevitably moving production with a suite of performances that are just about perfect. I'm in awe.” — The Hub Review
    “The Huntington delivers a rich, entertaining, and meaningful play.” — Blast Magazine
    “A thoughtful new play, and a potent reminder of the impact we have on each other and that life has twists that don’t follow a script. Annie Baker has an original voice, appealing quirkiness and an astute sense of what makes people tick.” – New York Daily News
    “Humor and poignancy are coaxed forth, love swells and recedes, and guarded people step into the light, all of which is orchestrated with a subtlety and unfailing naturalness. The realness creeps up on you until you’re suddenly surprised by how well you know these people.” – Variety
    “‘A!’ Riveting! It packs a terrific punch and reminds us of our inescapable need to come together and forge human connections — it reminds us of the very power of theatre.” – Entertainment Weekly
    “Splendidly sensitive!” – Backstage
More Reviews

Features

  • 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."

  • Circle Mirror Transformation Audio Slideshow

    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. The 29-year-old playwright's light, sure touch is apparent in the latest Huntington Theatre Company production, the comedy Circle Mirror Transformation . . . "

  • 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 . . ."

Artists

  • Betsy AidemMarty
  • Nadia BowersTheresa
  • Michael HammondJames
  • Jeremiah KisselSchultz
  • Marie PolizzanoLauren
  • Annie BakerPlaywright
  • Melia BensussenDirector
  • Cristina TodescoScenic Designer
  • Bobby Frederick Tilley IICostume Designer
  • Dan KotlowitzLighting Designer
  • David RemediosSound Designer
  • Kathryn MostProduction Stage Manager
  • Josiane M. LemieuxStage Manager


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