MARIA GABRIELE BAKER is a performer, writer of prose, poetry, and drama, as well as a translator of all things German. Before moving to New York in 1994, she studied Theatre and Media Studies and German Philology at the University of Vienna, Austria, and worked as a freelance theatre and culture critic. In New York, she trained as a dancer at Ballet Arts and an actor at Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and at The Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Institute for Professional Training, which she eventually headed as (program and administrative) Director from 1998 -2002. At the EST Institute, she also trained as a playwright. Her plays have been performed and produced at various NYC and NJ companies and venues (EST, Vital, The Tank, and Drew University to name a few) as well as in Austria (dieMonopol). Full-length plays include Graceful Living (produced as a workshop production at Ensemble Studio Theatre) and Stammtisch der Hinterbliebenen (produced by dieMonopol in Austria).

Maria holds an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute and continues to work on various writing projects and cross-genre collaborations (look for the upcoming Umbra Nihili, The Shadow of Nothingness). Her writing has been published in UND Magazin, and Skryptor’s Luminous Volumes among others. Together with Paul Boocock and Sean Sutherland, she founded Verbal Supply Company in 2012, a writers’ collective that, for 7 years, emphasized the live reading experience and created an audio archive for its readers. In her ongoing collaborations with Brooklyn senior citizens she has edited and published We Live Here, a collection of texts created in writing workshops, and As Told, an oral histories project. In 2021, the Seniors have completed an online archive detailing their experiences in 2020, We Are Writing Through the Pandemic.

Most recently she has published a video presentation/memoir, As Lived, as part of the exhibition Domestic State at Beard and Weill Galleries at Wheaton College.

She works as a consultant for the Writing Center at Columbia University and teaches Integrative Practices and Strategies at Pratt Institute. She is a member of Actors’ Equity, the Dramatists Guild, and Ensemble Studio Theatre.