Body Awareness

Body Awareness is a 2008 play written by Annie Baker. It was produced as part of the “Vermont plays”, a series of Baker plays all set in the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont. It had out-of-town tryouts in both Boston and Berkeley, California. Body Awareness tells the story of a psychology professor named Phyllis who lives in Vermont with her partner Joyce and Joyce’s son from a previous marriage, Jared. Jared displays some symptoms of Asperger’s syndrome but refuses to be examined by a therapist. When a photographer named Frank comes to stay with the women as a houseguest, he brings tension into Phyllis and Joyce’s home and relationship. In 2008 Body Awareness opened Off-Broadway to mostly positive reviews. It was Baker’s first Off-Broadway production. Since then she has gone on to produce several successful plays, most notably The Flick, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.