Photo Flash: Profile Theatre Begins 2018-2019 Double Season with 2.5 MINUTE RIDE by Lisa Kron

PROFILE THEATRE presents a production of the comedic drama 2.5 Minute Ride by Pulitzer and Tony-winning playwright Lisa Kron. Riding the rails of humor and horror, this solo performance features NYC-based actor Allison Mickelson, who recently impressed audiences at Portland Center Stage in Lisa Kron's award-winning musical Fun Home. It will be directed by Jane Unger, Profile's founding artistic director, and marks the first full (double!) season for Profile's ambitious new Artistic Director Josh Hecht, as well as the third year of the Diversity and Inclusivity Initiative.

Artist Repertory Theatre's Alder Stage, 1515 SW Morrison Street, Portland OR 97205. January 25 - February 11, 2018. Thursday-Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2pm.
Also second and third Wednesdays, January 31 and February 7 at 7:30pm.

TICKETS:
Now available online at www.profiletheatre.org
Or contact box office at (503)-242-0080 or boxoffice@profiletheatre.org
Season Subscriptions on sale now with flex packages to see 4, 5 or all 6 plays for $80-$198
Single Tickets on sale now for $20-$38
*Discounts offered for groups, students, teachers, ASL, 30-and-under, Arts for All and previews.

In her solo show 2.5 Minute Ride, Lisa Kron invites her audience (and her girlfriend Peg) on the Kron family "vacation" to Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. You see, in spite of near-blindness, diabetes and a heart condition, Lisa's 74-year-old father insists on yearly trips to the world capital of roller coasters. But this isn't the only journey Lisa takes with her ailing father. She also accompanies Walter to Auschwitz, where his parents were killed, and where she understands more clearly the joys and sorrows of her father's heart. With wit and compassion, Lisa creates a complex and searingly funny meditation on how human beings make sense of tragedy, grief, and everyday life.

"Lisa Kron? is one of the funniest playwrights I've ever met," says Profile's AD Josh Hecht. Kron is recently well-known as the Pulitzer and Tony-winning writer of the musical Fun Home. But for nearly three decades, her writing has run the gamut from award-winning solo shows to ground-breaking plays on Broadway, often using her own family as the source material for some of the most insightful (and hysterical) observations of human nature. She's a writer full of big ideas with a bold, inimitable voice. "Profile's unique mission allows us to present her early work with the iconic downtown performance troupe The Five Lesbian Brothers," continues Hecht,"To her career-defining solo show 2.5 Minute Ride, her 2006 Broadway hit Well and her 2010 political comedy-drama In The Wake."

"For my first full season at Profile, and the third and final year of the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative," says Artistic Director Josh Hecht?, "I wanted to do something extra ambitious: a special double season featuring two of our most celebrated, most important national playwrights in conversation for a full eighteen months. Two writers at the peak of their powers whose work over the last twenty-five years will seem shockingly urgent and relevant and taken together, will connect us with Americans of every shape, size, creed and color and remind us of the tapestry in which we live."

Lisa Kron, Playwright

Lisa Kron has been writing and performing theater since arriving to New York from Michigan in 1984. Her work has been widely produced in New York, regionally, and internationally. Her play Fun Home, a musical written with composer Jeanine Tesori and based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, earned her 2 Tony Awards in 2015. Many of her plays have earned her nominations and awards including In The Wake and Well, which play later this season at Profile. Lisa is a founding member of the legendary collaborative theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers whose plays have all been produced by their theatrical home, New York Theater Workshop. Lisa has received several playwriting fellowships, including from the Lortel and Guggenheim Foundations. As an actor, Lisa's professional career began in 1983 when Michael Kahn chose her as member of the ANTA Company. Since then she has acted in her own plays and the plays of the Five Lesbian Brothers, and can also be seen in theaters across the New York region.

Allison Mickelson, Actor (Lisa)

Allison is honored to debut at Profile Theatre with the brilliant writing of Lisa Kron. Favorite roles include Alison in Fun Home (Portland Center Stage, OR), Mother in Ragtime (Surflight Theater, NJ), Lola in Damn Yankees (Allenberry Playhouse, PA), Emily in Elf The Musical (National Tour), and Mame in Mame (Allenberry Playhouse and Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, VA). Allison has written and performed numerous solo cabarets in NYC, MA, PA, SD and OR. She teaches music and yoga, conducts choirs, and works with art and worship at Middle Collegiate Church, a progressive worshiping community in the East Village. Special thanks to Jane Unger, Josh Hecht, the creative team and the crew. Profile Theatre's Diversity and Inclusion Initiative warrants high praise and Mickelson thanks patrons for supporting live theater and the highlighting of these voices.

Jane Unger, Director
As the founding Artistic Director of Profile Theatre Project, Jane is delighted to return to Profile and usher in this extraordinary season featuring Anna Deveare Smith and Lisa Kron with Kron's 2.5 Minute Ride. During her fifteen years at the Profile helm she had the pleasure of producing and directing seasons by playwrights Arthur Kopit (inaugural season), Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Constance Congdon, Romulus Linney, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally, Lanford Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, John Guare, Neil Simon, Horton Foote, Lee Blessing and Athol Fugard, working directly with many of these writers on new play development. Recently in Portland at Artists Repertory Theatre, Mothers and Sons by Terrence McNally and the world premiere of The Talented Ones by Yussef El Guindi. Other directorial work: Triad Stage, The Inge Festival, Creede Repertory Theatre, Idaho Theatre for Youth, Great Plains Theatre Conference and in Portland Storefront Theatre, Miracle Theatre, CoHo Productions, JAW at Portland Center Stage and New Rose Theatre. She adapted and directed Carver Country for Literary Arts, based on Raymond Carver short stories and worked as a consultant with Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle on The Financial Lives of the Poets and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. As an actress, Jane worked in the New York area at theatres including Manhattan Theatre Club, Manhattan Punch Line and Hartford Stage. Among the awards Jane has received, she is especially proud of her Drammy Award for Best Director for Wings and the Drammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Josh Hecht, Profile Theatre Artistic Director

Josh is a Drama Desk Award-winning director whose productions have been seen in New York at MCC Theater, The Cherry Lane, The Duke on 42nd Street, New World Stages, Culture Project, regionally at The Guthrie Theater, the Berkshire Theatre Group, the Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Signature Theatre (DC) and internationally at the Dublin Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and elsewhere. His collaboration with Ping Chong and Company was commissioned by and premiered at The Kennedy Center before touring the northeast. His writing has received the support of the Jerome Foundation. He is formerly the Director of Playwright Development at MCC Theater and the Director of New Play Development at WET. He's served on the faculty of the New School for Drama MFA Directing program, the Fordham University MFA Playwriting program, Purchase College SUNY's BFA Dramatic Writing program and has been a guest artist at The Juilliard School, NYU's Dramatic Writing MFA, Carnegie Mellon's MFA Playwriting, University of Minnesota's BFA Acting program and others. He directed Profile Theatre's ambitious repertory productions of Water by the Spoonful and The Happiest Song Plays Last at the conclusion of the 2017 Quiara Alegría Hudes season.

Production Team
*for additional bios or to arrange interviews with artists, please contact Marketing Consultant Jessica Drake

Peter Ksander, Scenic Designer
Casi Pacilio, Sound Designer
Jana Crenshaw, Composer
Sarah Gahagan, Costume Designer
Miranda k Hardy, Lighting Designer
Kyra Bishop, Props Master
Carol Ann Wohlmut, Stage Manager
Rory Breshears, Production Manager
Charlie Capps, Production Assistant
Outreach & In Dialogue Staged Readings

As part of Profile's robust outreach mission they have actively connected to a number of synagogues to create partnerships during this production. Beth Israel, Neveh Shalom and Shir Tikvah have all expressed an interest in collaborating in a number of ways with the company to bring awareness of this exciting programming to their congregants, including pre-show meet and greet events with artists and Profile staff. Also in the works - a panel conversation with the children of Holocaust survivors (second generation survivors) co-hosted by Profile and The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

In Dialogue Staged Readings include new and contemporary plays in conversation with Lisa Kron's and Anna Deavere Smith's work, as well as readings of Kron and Smith plays not in the Main Stage season. Staged Readings will be announced throughout the season.

In Dialogue Events prior to or following every performance including lectures, pre-show talks, concerts and mat chats with cast and creative. Schedule posted on website.
About Profile Theatre
Now in its 20th season, Profile Theatre's mission is to produce a season of plays devoted to a single playwright, engaging with the community to explore that writer's vision and influence on theatre and the world at large. With the 2018-2019 season, Profile begins the third year of an Initiative for Diversity and Inclusion. Through this initiative, Profile has intentionally considers playwrights whom, traditionally, the theatre industry has not supported and developed. Profile has committed to three years of presenting the work of female and/or playwrights of color and will adopt these practices into their core values. There is energized and passionate conversation happening in theatres throughout the country around the ideas of diversity and inclusion. With this initiative, Profile places itself not only at the center of that conversation, but also on the leading edge of change.

Season Sponsors
Profile Theatre's 2017 Season Sponsor is Ronni LaCroute. Additional support by The Regional Arts and Culture Council and Work for Art, The Oregon Arts Commission, The Meyer Memorial Trust, The James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation, The Oregon Community Foundation, The Collins Foundation, The Kinsman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Autzen Foundation, The Rose E. Tucker Charitable and the PGE Foundation.

For more information, visit Profiletheatre.org or call 503.242.0080

Photo credit David Kinder.