“Lewis and Clark, Jack Kerouac, and me: hitting the road!” That’s the cheesiest line in Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 26 Miles, now showing at Profile Theatre. It may also be the most important, as a nerdy teenage girl, Olivia (Alex Ramirez de Cruz), earnestly announces her place in a pantheon of iconic road narratives.
26 Miles is the latest in Profile’s season of plays by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Following last year’s focus on Sarah Ruhl, this season reflects the company’s relatively new initiative to spotlight work by women and people of color. It’s a sensible approach to counterbalancing theater’s well-documented diversity problem, and one the company, which each year dedicates an entire season to work by a single playwright, is uniquely positioned to take.