‘The Flick’ by Annie Baker wins Pulitzer Prize for drama

Annie Baker’s “The Flick” -- a highly divisive drama that prompted an abundance of head-scratching and some audience walkouts during its off-Broadway run last year -- has won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

The three-hour play follows the employees of a single-screen movie theater as they clean, converse and otherwise pass the time silently in front of the big screen.

“The Flick” debuted last year at New York’s Playwrights Horizons, where it was directed by Sam Gold. Baker’s other plays include “Body Awareness” and “Circle Mirror Transformation,” the latter of which was produced at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa in 2011.

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Baker won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize last year for “The Flick.” The annual award honors female playwrights. A native of Massachusetts, Baker often sets her plays in New England, focusing on emotional undercurrents at play in ordinary, even mundane situations.

This year’s finalists in the Pulitzer drama category were “The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence,” by Madeleine George, and the musical “Fun Home,” with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, and music by Jeanine Tesori.

Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote last year that Baker’s “The Flick” was a better play than the contenders for the Tony awards, which recognize work produced in Broadway theaters.

Last year’s winner in the drama category was Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced,” about a corporate lawyer who has hidden his Pakistani Muslim heritage.

The award comes with a $10,000 monetary prize.

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Pulitzer Prize for drama goes to ‘Disgraced,’ by Ayad Akhtar

Review: ‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ at South Coast Repertory

Annie Baker is quiet, but her ‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ is making noise