Downstage @ New Rep Announces 2.5 MINUTE RIDE, Opens 10/4

New Rep is pleased to open its fourth season of Downstage @ New Rep with Lisa Kron's one woman show 2.5 Minute Ride. Downstage @ New Rep, Up Close, On The Edge, presents programming that is new, edgy, and controversial to audiences eager for a thought-provoking theatrical experience. 2.5 Minute Ride opens to the press on Monday, October 5, 2009 at 7:30pm and plays through October 24, 2009 at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in the Black Box Theater.

"I am thrilled to be making my Downstage @ New Rep directing debut with Lisa Kron's clever and personal piece 2.5 Minute Ride," states M. Bevin O'Gara, the Director. Ms. O'Gara continues, "During my two years as the Artistic Associate at New Rep, some of my favorite moments occurred in the Black Box Theater. It is an intimate space that begs for the audience to be included in the experience of a play. And the combination of getting to work in that space and with one of my favorite actresses, Adrianne Krstansky was just too perfect to pass up.'

"I am excited to be working on 2.5 Minute Ride for many different reasons," comments Kate Warner, New Rep's Artistic Director. "Lisa and I are both alumni of Kalamazoo College; Bevin is an extremely talented director; and I was roommates with Adrianne one winter when we both taught at Kalamazoo."

Ms. Warner adds, "2.5 Minute Ride is the ideal piece to start our Downstage Season with. The play invites us on an honest journey of Lisa Kron's family life-one that makes us laugh, cry, and value the importance of family."

This one-woman show by critically acclaimed author Lisa Kron invites us on a journey that is both uproariously funny and surprisingly sobering, as we are introduced to a cast of characters through the Kron family album. From her devout Jewish brother desperate to find his "shana maidel," to her own experiences being a gay woman, to her 75-year old father returning to Auschwitz, where his parents were killed, Kron asks the question of how we can find humor in the midst of life's cruel twists of fate.

New Repertory Theatre presents provocative and intelligent works of both established and emerging playwrights in an intimate setting that involves and engages the audience. New Rep has earned a reputation for dynamic productions that honor the writers and feature talented professional actors from the New England Theatre community as well as guest artists from around the U.S. New Rep has received Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards for outstanding acting, scenic design, directions, and production. Programming for New Repertory Theatre is supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Tickets: $25 General Admission.
Call: 617-923-8487 or buy online at www.newrep.org.

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