Complains about “The Flick” have led Playwrights Horizons artistic director Tim Sanford to send an e-mail to the theater’s subscribers. Louisa Krause and Aaron Clifton Moten in an awkward touching and funny moment in Annie Baker’s “The Flick” The Flick at Playwrights Horizons, with Aaron Clifton Moten, Matthew Maher, and Louisa Krause

Annie Baker’s The Flick has won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Here is my review of The Flick.

Citation: “Awarded to “The Flick,” by Annie Baker, a thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.”

Update: Barrow Street Theater plans to produce The Flick in the near future, according to a spokesman for its producer, Scott Rudin, although all details are to be announced. (Buyer and Cellar is running at the theater through the end of August.)

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were “The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence,” by Madeleine George, a cleverly constructed play that uses several historical moments – from the 1800s to the 2010s – to meditate on the technological advancements that bring people together and tear them apart; and “Fun Home,” book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, music by Jeanine Tesori, a poignant musical adaptation of a graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, exploring sexual identity amid complicated family constraints and relationships.

My mixed reaction to The Flick is evident in this excerpt from my review:

Those who have seen the previous gently-paced, meticulous, near miraculous collaborations between playwright Annie Baker and director Sam Gold — “Circle Mirror Transformation,” “The Aliens,” their adaptation of “Uncle Vanya” – may be similarly entranced by “The Flick,” which has now opened at Playwrights Horizons, focusing on three employees of a run-down movie theater in Worcester County, Massachusetts. The cast is exceptional, and the play is just as quietly breathtaking as their previous efforts.

But it also runs longer than their other plays, much longer – since the characters talk about films all the time, I’ll say Heaven’s Gate longer, reaching towards Andy Warhol’s Empire State Building film longer. Ok, not really; it only starts to feel that way.

Baker’s previous plays have all been no more than two hours. “The Flick” is three hours and 15 minutes – 195 minutes (including intermission.) On hearing the length, devotees of their work may think it inconsequential, and the truth is “The Flick” is wonderful in all ways but this one. Even those theatergoers who wind up agreeing that the play should be shortened may not mind much, but to me, the excessive length indicates something of a breakdown – in Baker and Gold’s exquisite sense of timing, even in the bond between these great theater artists and the audience.

…

Slowly, with painstaking care, we eventually see the three develop over one summer into what could be called a love triangle, although that implies the kind of swirling, romantic action that happens in the movies, not the awkward, unrequited, half-articulated desires and fears that happen among them in this movie theater while they are sweeping up in-between (unseen) movies – interaction that feels so real that it’s nearly painful.

Interspersed with this development is much talk about movies. The characters argue over movies, and play games about movies, in ways that are hilarious, touching, and even informative. “The Flick” is a play about movie-lovers that theater-lovers can love, if they’re patient enough. (It would have been better an hour shorter, though.)

I am delighted that Annie Baker has won the Pulitzer — though wish it had been for one of her other plays, such as Circle Mirror Transformation.

The Flick was the subject of great controversy — many theatergoers walked out, complaining it was too long, which prompted the artistic director of Playwrights Horizons to write a letter to the theater’s subscribers.

This year’s jury that selected the three finalists and the winner for the Pulitzer for Drama was comprised of:

Jill Dolan, professor, Princeton University (Chair)

David Auburn, playwright, New York, NY

Karen D’Souza, theater critic, San Jose Mercury News/Bay Area Newspaper Group

Dominic P. Papatola, theater critic, St. Paul Pioneer Press

Alexis Soloski, drama critic, Village Voice, New York, NY

Previous winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Drama:

2013: Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar

2012: Water By the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes

2011: Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris

2010: Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey

2009: Ruined, by Lynn Nottage

2008: August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts

2007: Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay-Abaire

2006: No award

2004-05: Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley

2003-04: I Am My Own Wife, by Doug Wright

2002-03: Anna in the Tropics, by Nilo Cruz

2001-02: Topdog/Underdog, by Suzan-Lori Parks

2000-01: Proof, by David Auburn

1999-00: Dinner with Friends, by Donald Margulies

1998-99: Wit, by Margaret Edson

1997-98: How I Learned To Drive, by Paula Vogel

1996-97: No award

1995-96: Rent, by Jonathan Larson

1994-95: The Young Man From Atlanta, by Horton Foote

1993 94: Three Tall Women, by Edward Albee

1992-93: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, by Tony Kushner

1991-92: The Kentucky Cycle, by Robert Schenkkan

1990-91: Lost in Yonkers, by Neil Simon

1989-90: The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson

1988-89: The Heidi Chronicles, by Wendy Wasserstein

1987 88: Driving Miss Daisy, by Alfred Uhry

1986-87: Fences, by August Wilson

1985-86: No award

1984-85: Sunday in the Park With George, by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim

1983-84: Glengarry Glen Ross, by David Mamet

1982-83: ‘night, Mother, by Marsha Norman

1981 82: A Soldier’s Play, by Charles Fuller

1980-81: Crimes of the Heart, by Beth Henley

1979-80: Talley’s Folly, by Lanford Wilson

1978-79: Buried Child, by Sam Shepard

1977-78: The Gin Game, by D.L. Coburn

1976-77: The Shadow Box, by Michael Cristofer

1975-76: A Chorus Line, by Michael Bennett, James Kirkwood, Nicholas Dante, Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban

1974-75: Seascape, by Edward Albee

1973 74: No award

1972-73: That Championship Season, by Jason Miller

1971-72: No award

1970-71: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, by Paul Zindel

1969-70: No Place To Be Somebody, by Charles Gordone

1968-69: The Great White Hope, by Howard Sackler

1967-68: No award

1966 67: A Delicate Balance, by Edward Albee

1965-66: No award

1964 65: The Subject Was Roses, by Frank D. Gilroy

1963-64: No award

1962-63: No award

1961-62: How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, by Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser

1960-61: All the Way Home, by Tad Mosel

1959-60: Fiorello!, by Jerome Weidman, George Abbott, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock

1958-59: J.B., by Archibald MacLeish

1957-58: Look Homeward, Angel, by Ketti Frings

1956-57: Long Day’s Journey Into Night, by Eugene O’Neill

1955-56: The Diary of Anne Frank, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett

1954-55: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams

1953-54: The Teahouse of the August Moon, by John Patrick

1952-53: Picnic, by William Inge

1951-52: The Shrike, by Joseph Kramm

1950-51: No award

1949-50: South Pacific, by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II and Joshua Logan

1948-49: Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller

1947-48: A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

1946-47: No award

1945-46: State of the Union, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

1944-45: Harvey, by Mary Chase

1943-44: No award

1942-43: The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder

1941-42: No award

1940-41: There Shall Be No Night, by Robert E. Sherwood

1939-40: The Time of Your Life, by William Saroyan

1938-39: Abe Lincoln in Illinois, by Robert E. Sherwood

1937-38: Our Town, by Thornton Wilder

1936-37: You Can’t Take It With You, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman

1935-36: Idiot’s Delight, by Robert E. Sherwood

1934-35: The Old Maid, by Zoe Akins

1933-34: Men in White, by Sidney Kingsley

1932-33: Both Your Houses, by Maxwell Anderson

1931-32: Of Thee I Sing, by George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin

1930-31: Alison’s House, by Susan Glaspell

1929-30: The Green Pastures, by Marc Connelly

1928-29: Street Scene, by Elmer Rice

1927-28: Strange Interlude, by Eugene O’Neill

1926-27: In Abraham’s Bosom, by Paul Green

1925-26: Craig’s Wife, by George Kelly

1924-25: They Knew What They Wanted, by Sidney Howard

1923-24: Hell-Bent fer Heaven, by Hatcher Hughes

1922-23: Icebound, by Owen Davis

1921-22: Anna Christie, by Eugene O’Neill

1920-21: Miss Lulu Bett, by Zona Gale

1919-20: Beyond the Horizon, by Eugene O’Neill

1918-19: No award

1917-18: Why Marry?, by Jesse Lynch Williams

1916-17: No award

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