About the Play:

The Framer has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues.

"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

The Framer is a full-length dark comedy by Edward Allan Baker. A dying man toils ceaselessly in his framing shop to leave his long-suffering wife some financial security but is side-tracked by a crisis of his loser brother in-law. The Framer is an authentic tale about a dysfunctional couple terrified of the future.

The Framer is about a dying man trying to reconcile with his wife. Set in a picture framing shop in a southern New England mill town, the title character, Ronnie, is dying from an alcoholic-related disease. He has adamantly and unsuccessfully tried to push his wife Patsy away. She has long suffered from his alcohol abuse, but she won't leave him or the frame shop, placing her in a delicate emotional state of being. Ronnie unwittingly experiences the emotional and physical brutality of his past, motivating him to sincerely atone for his sins and provide some financial security for Patsy – but his plan to repent is side-tracked due to a request from his hot-tempered brother in-law Falcon. Patsy's brother has a young daughter whom he believes was molested by his wife's sister's husband, Joe. Falcon asks his brother-in-law Ronnie to kill the suspected molester, since Ronnie is dying anyway. The Framer asks the question, "If you had two weeks to live, who would you kill?"

The Framer premiered in 2008 by the Broken Watch Theater Company and played to a sold out audience that stood at off-off-Broadway's 50-seat Michael Weller Theater in New York City.

Cast: 2 female, 4 male

What people say:

"Baker deals with mortality and tragic influences by creating characters that are brutally honest, fascinatingly quirky, and jaded enough to find humor in almost anything." — ELJNYC.com

"There is an exuberant creativity in Edward Allan Baker's The Framer… make[s] the dysfunctional family in August: Osage County look pretty tame by comparison." — TheaterMania.com

"Baker, with a talent for good old-fashioned storytelling and a flair for robust humor, turns it all into some two hours of totally arresting theatre … entertaining, seething stew of a domestic drama." — Backstage

About the Playwright:

Edward Allan Baker (1950-2021) was a frequently produced New York City Playwright with over 30 plays to his credit, most notable One Acts (produced all over the US, Canada, and Europe). He wrote for HBO and Showtime, and was awarded The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Award for Theatrical Excellence by The Ensemble Studio Theatre. He taught playwriting at Sarah Lawrence College for twelve years before joining the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University faculty in 2006.