Beloved playwright Annie Baker) won the Pulitzer for Drama in 2014 for her play, *The Flick. *A decade later, she’s releasing her directorial debut, *Janet Planet, *through A24.
We begin by talking about her striking first feature (7:55): the Western Massachusetts origins of the project (11:00), the mother-daughter love story at its center (13:24), how Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” shaped Baker’s understanding of time (22:55), and why she’s routinely sidestepped the slippery-slope of “confessional” autobiography in her own work (30:30).
On the back-half, we discuss Annie’s early jobs in New York before she turned to the page and the classroom (40:00), the issues of class that continue to plague contemporary theater (45:00), a formative Rainer Maria Rilke poem as read by Sam (55:50), and whether she believes art “matters” in 2024 (1:00:18)
Thoughts or future guest ideas? Email us at [email protected]).
See omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
