PORTLAND, ORE.: Profile Theatre, which typically produces works by a single playwright throughout a season, has announced its 2018-19 slate, shining the spotlight on a pair of artists: Lisa Kron and Anna Deavere Smith.
“For my first full season at Profile, and the third and final year of the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative,” said artistic director Josh Hecht in a statement, “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 18 months.”
The season will start with Kron’s 2.5 Minute Ride (Jan. 25-Feb. 11, 2018), about the writer’s relationship with her ailing father and the family’s trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park.
Next up will be The Secretaries (June 14-July 1, 2018), by the Five Lesbian Brothers (Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Kron), a satire about a woman who joins the secretarial pool at the Cooney Lumber Mill and learns that monthly murders occur there.
Following will be Fires in the Mirror (Oct. 24-28, 2018), by Anna Deavere Smith, about the 1991 riots that took place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after an African-American boy was killed by a car in a rabbi’s motorcade and a Jewish student was slain in retaliation.
The season will continue with Kron’s In the Wake (Nov. 28-Dec. 16, 2018), about a woman grappling with her own politics and emotional life during the 2000 presidential election.
Next will be Smith’s Let Me Down Easy (Spring 2019), a play constructed from verbatim interview transcripts about the national debate on health care. Originally created as a one-person show, the piece will feature six performers.
Running in rotating repertory with Let Me Down Easy, and featuring the same cast of six, will be Kron’s Well, about Kron’s mother’s health issues and the wellness of their community in Lansing, Mich.
Programming will also include the In Dialogue Staged Readings series, including new and contemporary plays in conversation with the work of Kron and Smith. The series will also offer readings of the two playwrights’ works not featured in the season lineup.
Profile Theatre, founded in 1997, produces multiple works by one playwright each season.
