CHAPEL HILL – Jan. 9 through 13, 2008, PlayMakers Repertory Company presents the second production in its new PRC² series, “2.5 Minute Ride.” Playwright Lisa Kron will perform her celebrated one-woman show, taking us on the ride of her life, while exploring her relationship with her father along the way with wry humor and sincere emotion. Kron’s revelations are evocative and uncompromising, demonstrating how humor and horror can share the same moment, as she interweaves a pilgrimage with her father to Auschwitz to view the site of his parents’ death during WWII with a hysterical trip to the world’s roller coaster capital in Ohio.
Show times are at 8 p.m. nightly and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 13, in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre, in the Center for Dramatic Art on
“2.5 Minute Ride” received an OBIE Award, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations, an L.A. Drama-Logue Award, and the GLAAD Media Award for best play on or Off Broadway and was named the best autobiographical show of 1999 by New York Press. PlayMakers’ production is directed by Mark Brokaw.
Newsday called the play “one of the most tender and discerning family tragicomedies in recent memory.” The New Yorker wrote: “Kron gets it: Her personal story resonates with compassion for humanity. She pulls off the impossible.”
Kron’s play “Well” received two Tony nominations and was named on Best Play lists by The New York Times, the Associated Press, Backstage, and the Advocate, followed by an acclaimed run at A.C.T. in San Francisco. Her other plays include “101 Humiliating Stories” (Drama Desk nomination), “Charity” and “Montecore”, two short plays presented at the 2006 Humana Festival and the New York Fringe, and “43/13”, produced by Dad’s Garage in Atlanta. Kron is a founding member of the OBIE and Bessie Award-winning theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers, whose plays have been produced by New York Theater Workshop and performed widely throughout the country both by the Brothers and other companies.
“(Lisa Kron’s) power as a writer-performer is a gift to the American stage,” said acclaimed playwright Paula Vogel.
“2.5 Minute Ride” is the second of three plays presented in PlayMakers’ new PRC² Second Stage Series, each telling unique, real-life stories, and followed by artist/audience discussion after each performance. This season’s PRC² will close with the world premiere of Mike Wiley’s “Witness to an Execution” (April 23-27, 2008), which explores capital punishment through candid stories from death row in the
For information about PlayMakers’ 2007-2008 season and the PRC² Second Stage Series, call (919) 962-PLAY or visit www.playmakersrep.org. Based in UNC’s
PlayMakers contact: Connie Mahan, (919) 428-1744, mail:email.unc.edu:cmahan.