Infinite Life

A funny and profound meditation on the complexity of chronic illness and the ache of desire.

How far would you go to heal? For five women at a clinic in Northern California, deprivation seems to be the only answer to heal their bodies from a litany of afflictions--cancers and autoimmune disorders and thyroid conditions and mysterious infections. To distract themselves from the near-constant pain they are in, they philosophize and swap book recommendations, confide intimate family stories, and share hopes for their future recoveries. Over the course of several days, the clinic becomes a purgatorial space, where prolonged hunger and suffering seem to warp time itself. Infinite Life is an engrossing and compassionate play that resists easy answers to the problem of what it means to reside in a body that fails you.

Annie Baker's plays include The Antipodes, The Flick (Pulitzer Prize), John, The Aliens (Obie Award), Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award), an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and Infinite Life. Her plays have been produced at more than two hundred theaters throughout the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and the Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library.

Baker's debut film Janet Planet, written and directed by Baker, premiered at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival, followed by a screening at the 2023 New York Film Festival. It received a wide release in 2024 from A24 Films and received three nominations at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards: Best First Feature, Best First Screenplay, and Best Cinematography.