Dina Thomas in “2.5 Minute Ride.” Photo courtesy of Studio Theatre. Video Production by Studiio Box DC.
This show is a love letter. A love letter to family and to memories that bind us and both demolish and lift us up. It’s a joy to watch. It’s also clear-eyed, compassionate, and unsentimental in its look at how much time we can actually spend with our families before that needed break.
…it’s a remarkable love letter to survival and the courage to reach for the ordinary. You really don’t want to miss this play.
Lisa (a mesmerizing Dina Thomas) narrates parts of her father’s life while running through slides of her family. She’s putting together a video of her father’s life. In 1937, at the age of 15, he was sent to America to escape the Nazi regime while his Jewish parents remained behind. Somehow he landed in Lansing, Michigan where he grew up, married, and raised a family.
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.