Studio Theatre Presents First In Trio Of Solo Performances Lisa Kron's 2.5 MINUTE RIDE

Director Joanie Schultz and actor Dina Thomas reunite for 2.5 Minute Ride, Studio Theatre's first production by prolific playwright and two-time Tony Award winner Lisa Kron, streaming at studiotheatre.org from April 30 - May 23, 2021.

2.5 Minute Ride is a portrait of Lisa's father captured through two very different father-daughter trips: the family's annual pilgrimage to Ohio's Cedar Point amusement park, roller coaster capital of the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Auschwitz, where his parents were killed. Lisa connects these two disparate, formative parts of her father's life story with anecdotes, revelations, and irreverent asides in this travelogue through thrill and loss. The autobiographical play is the first in a trio of solo performances that will cap Studio's 2020-2021 all-digital season.

"Lisa's play resonates with me for how it approaches her father with a lot of heart, clear-eyed compassion, and tenderness-things I hope we value in our relationships, particularly after the last year," said Studio Artistic Director David Muse. "I'm excited to finally be presenting her work at Studio for the first time, and thrilled that Joanie and Dina are back to help us do it."

Lisa's father is 74, nearly blind, a Holocaust survivor, and addicted to roller coasters. 2.5 Minute Ride follows two very different father-daughter trips: the annual Kron family pilgrimage to roller-coaster heaven in Sandusky, Ohio and Lisa's once-in-a-lifetime trip to Auschwitz with her father. A travelogue through thrill and loss, Lisa Kron (book and lyrics, Fun Home) tracks her father's enthusiasm, physical frailty, and ambivalence about the lives he might have lived with humor and unsentimental compassion.

Lisa Kron is a writer and performer whose work has been widely produced in New York, regionally, and internationally. She wrote the book and lyrics for the musical Fun Home, with music by composer Jeanine Tesori, which won five 2015 Tony Awards, including Best Book, Score, and Musical, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Lisa's other plays include In the Wake, Well, and the Obie Award-winning 2.5 Minute Ride. As an actor, she received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Well and a Lortel Award for her turn as Mrs. Mi-Tzu and Mrs. Yang in the Foundry Theatre's acclaimed production of Good Person of Szechwan. She is the recipient of Guggenheim, Sundance, and MacDowell fellowships, a Doris Duke Performing Artists Award, a CalArts Alpert Award, a Helen Merrill Award, the Kleban Prize for libretto writing, and grants from Creative Capital and the New York Film Academy. Lisa is also a founding member of the Obie and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers. She serves on the boards of the MacDowell and The Sundance Institute, and as Council Vice President of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Learn more at studiotheatre.org.

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