Circle Mirror Transformation
When four lost New Englanders who enroll in Marty’s six-week-long community-center drama class begin to experiment with harmless games, hearts are quietly torn apart, and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won. A beautifully crafted diorama, a petri dish in which we see, with hilarious detail and clarity, the antic sadness of a motley quintet.
Cast Requirements
3 women
2 men
Press
“Annie Baker’s play is an absolute feast. Circle Mirror Transformation is the kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word. The play traces the lives of a handful of small-town Vermont residents who gather each week for an acting class taught at the local community center. By the play’s end we seem to see to the very bottom of these souls, and feel how the artificial intimacy of the acting class has shaped their lives in substantial ways.”
—Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
Production and Development History
Workshops: Sundance Institute and New York Theatre Workshop (2008).
World Premiere: Playwrights Horizons (2009).
Regional Premieres: South Coast Rep, Huntington Theatre Company, Studio Theater in DC, Guthrie Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Theater Artaud in San Francisco (2010-11).