Born in Michigan in 1961, Lisa Kron moved to New York in the 1980’s, where she began creating and performing solo works in the downtown Manhattan theater scene. Both her past and current works focus on themes of identity and family, as well as integrating her lesbian and Jewish background. Kron’s autobiographical solo pieces such as 101 Humiliating Stories (1993) and 2.5 Minute Ride (1996) have been theatrical successes. 101 Humiliating Stories received a Drama Desk nomination for its premiere at PS122; 2.5 Minute Ride, which had its world premieres at the La Jolla Playhouse in California in 1996 and its New York premiere at the Public Theater in 1999, received OBIE, L.A. Drama-Logue, New York Press, and GLAAD Media Awards, and continues to be performed by Kron and others worldwide.
She is a founding member of the OBIE and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theater company The Five Lesbian Brothers whose plays, Oedipus at Palm Springs, Brave Smiles, Brides of the Moon and The Secretaries have been produced at the New York Theater Workshop.
In 2004, Kron collaborated with composer Jeanine Tesori to create Fun Home, a musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel memoir of the same name. It premiered at the Public Theater in 2013 and moved to Broadway in 2015. It received five Tony awards, including Best Book of a Musical: Lisa Kron and Best Original Score (music and/or lyrics) Written for the Theatre: Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron (lyrics).
The Veri**on Play first premiered at the 2012 Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. The play was inspired by Kron’s own frustration with customer service, as well as pulling additional inspiration from a blog entitled People Hurt by Badly Inadequate Customer Service. Kron managed to not only take something humorous and turn it into a theatrical work but also to find an avenue where a wide demographic can relate to something as simple, yet infuriating, as bad customer service. As Kron says about The Veri**on Play, “…these crazy experiences seem trivial, but they may also reveal something deeper about what’s happening in society.”
