"I write about people born to brick and asphalt, who don't have bad days, they have bad years."
-Edward Allan Baker (1950-2021)

"Edward Allan Baker is the real thing, a hard hitting East Coast playwright, with a firm command of the issues of the day."
--John Patrick Shanley
(Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright)

"'what's so beautiful about a sunset over prairie avenue?'
Edward Allan Baker has written a play that deserves to be called an authentic work of art. Mr. Baker is a master of verisimilitude; he has an admirable ear. I found it exhilarating, and I am determined to see it again."
--Brendan Gill, New Yorker, April 1980

"In North of Providence, Edward Allan Baker takes a painful domestic crisis and transforms it into a one act play of emotional depth and conviction. An exemplar of the one act art."
--Mel Gussow, NY Times, 1985

"Edward Allan Baker's powerful one act play digs deeply into the complexities of family issues and consequential patterns. Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Beauty and Truth delivers gasp-inducing rawness from beginning to end."
--Time Out New York, Critics Choice
NY International Fringe Festival 2007


"There isn't a moment or line wasted in Edward Allan Baker's 45 minute, one act play, Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Beauty, and Truth. From the beginning, intensity drives the characters to act as they do until they have no choice but to leave...or stay, depending on the character. They are all trying to build lives based on some basic dreams."
--NY Theatre/Fringe Review, August 2007

"Edward Allan Baker's Face Divided is the most interesting of one-acts. It is another street-smart study by this chronicler of the stresses in working class relationships.
--Mel Gussow, NY Times, June 1991

"A Dead Man's Apartment by Edward Allan Baker suggests a contemporary, blue-collar equivalent of boulevard farce...has an infectiously high adrenaline quotient, some inspired moments of salty absurdism..."
--Ben Brantley, NY Times, May 1995

"Dear Edward Allan Baker:
I read North of Providence with my usual interest in your work, and I'm happy to see that your ear is as good as ever (you and Mamet!), that your characters live and breathe right on the page, and that - as they wrote years ago about another playwright I admire - you breathe fire into the smoking embers of naturalism.
Regards, Edward Albee"
--April 26, 1986


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Edward Allan Baker was a frequently produced New York City playwright. His one-act plays are produced all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Most notable among these are NORTH OF PROVIDENCE; DOLORES; ROSEMARY WITH GINGER; FACE DIVIDED; UP, DOWN, STRANGE, CHARMED, BEAUTY, AND TRUTH, and MAFIA ON PROZAC. Translations of DOLORES include French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese. His Off-Broadway productions of full-length plays include: PRAIRIE AVENUE, AMERICAN STORAGE, THE BRIDE OF OLNEYVILLE SQUARE, RAY ON THE WATER, and THE FRAMER. Other full length plays include FREE GIFT INSIDE, which Premiered at The Actors Studio, and SONNY UNDER THE ASSUMPTION, which premiered in Toronto. His work is published by Dramatists Play Service, Faber And Faber, and Smith And Kraus Theatre Books. DOLORES is included in Best Short Plays, 1989. Mr. Baker was also a screenwriter; his film adaptations of DOLORES and FACE DIVIDED have been chosen for film festivals, and full-length screen versions of DOLORES and ROSEMARY WITH GINGER have been optioned for production. Mr. Baker taught playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College for twelve years before joining the Actors Studio Drama School faculty in 2006. He received The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Award For Theatrical Excellence from the New York-based Ensemble Studio Theatre, and was a member of The Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild (East), and The Ensemble Studio Theatre.

For questions about performance rights, contact:
Leah Hamos, Gersh Agency
LHamos@gersh.com

Dramatists Play Service rights inquiries:
Professional rights:
pro@dramatists.com

Non-Professional rights:
nonpro@dramatists.com
  • North East, New York, USA

The Baker Family is dedicated to champion the written works of our late father, Edward Allan Baker. Please reach out to send your own 'Baker Play' photos/videos, share a story, or to say hello.