Travis G. Baker is known for his theatrical success with the 2014 play “One Blue Tarp,” and the upcoming “Hockey Mom” at Penobscot Theater Company. Born in Boston, Baker moved to Houston at age five, later attending the University of Houston where he worked with actor Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) and studied under playwright Edward Albee. In 1994, Baker relocated to New York City, where he had the opportunity to work with playwrights Arthur Miller, John Guare, Sam Sheppard, Adrienne Kennedy, María Irene Fornés, and Horton Foote who Baker credits for having taught him a lot about place and community, leading Baker to eventually find his fictional town of Clara, Maine.

 

When Baker moved to Maine in 2004, it was “a sort of homecoming for me,” he says,” as my mother’s parents met in Orono in 1936.” The characters in his plays are inspired directly from those he interacts with in real life. “I draw much of the details of the characters from those closest to me.”

 

Based in the fictional town of Clara, Maine, “Hair Frenzy” takes place in the “Hair Frenzy” salon inspired by an actual salon in Old Town, Maine that went out of business a number of years before Baker wrote the play. Tina (Jennifer True) the salon’s owner, is struggling with the frustrations of day to day life, doing the best she can as she faces the challenges of being a single mother and business owner. When her childhood best friend, now turned Hollywood starlet (Nanette Hennig Fraser), turns up out of the blue following an accident and in desperate need of Tina’s help, Tina is faced with a life changing decision she never could have imagined. With a cast of characters, all played by local Maine actors, this laugh out loud, heartbreaking comedy, focuses on the idea of leaving and coming home, opportunities lost and found, ultimately asking the question, ”is there really no place like home?”

 

When asked about what inspired the writing of “Hair Frenzy,” Baker said, “I wanted to explore how the town worked and who worked in the town. What are the small business struggles and rewards?”  Ultimately, according to Baker, “Hair Frenzy is about big dreams, small towns, and bad hair. Sometimes we don’t perceive our own value to a community, a family, ourselves. Conversely, sometimes, as a community, we don’t value, as much as we should, those people and places that truly make a town viable.”

 

LCCT’s production of “Hair Frenzy” will be the first since the play premiered at The Penobscot Theater Company in Bangor in 2016. Tickets: $15 adult, $13 theater members, and $5 youth 18 and under, are available at the door as well as in advance at www.LincolnTheater.net. Lincoln Theater is located at 2 Theater St. in Damariscotta.