"Baker has a soft spot for the abandoned, the discarded, the hard luck case... her heartbreaking works of staggering focus have actually rescued realism from the aesthetic scrap heap" — Helen Shaw, "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." — The debut play collection of Annie Baker includes : an exploration of friendship and music in the lives of three misfits behind a coffee shop; : a meditation on life within the rhythms of an adult drama class; : A dark comedy in which a grown son returns home to live with his mother and stepfather; and : a close look at a nontraditional family dealing with an unexpected guest. 's other plays include and an adaptation of . She won an Obie Award for Best New American Play for and . She is a 2011 United States Artists Fellow and a resident playwright at the Signature Theatre.