Apart from her teaching and speaking engagements, ICOA Writer-in-Residence Sonali Samarasinghe also began her Ithaca acting debut in April.

Samarasinghe was part of the three-member cast of  “K2,” Patrick Meyers’s play based on the real-life experience of two American climbers on their expedition on the world’s second-highest mountain. This local production, presented by the Readers’ Theatre of Ithaca and directed by Anne Marie Cummings, featured performances by Tim Mollen and Eric Sterbenk as the two mountain climbers and a reading of stage directions by Samarasinghe.

“I like this play’s rawness, its unfiltered visceral emotions that we all have to deal with sometimes in our lives,” shares Samarasinghe in the trailer for “K2.”

In an interview on WSKG, Mollen says Samarasinghe added her “rich, gorgeous speaking voice” to “K2,” giving the play “a richness and flavor that would not have been there.”

“K2” was on stage at Lehman Alternative’s Black Box Theatre (111 Chestnut Street) on Friday and Saturday, April 26 and 27. A talk-back session followed each performance: Todd Miner, executive director of Cornell Outdoor Education, on the 26th; Gail Holst-Warhaft, Tompkins County Poet Laureate, on the 27th; and Peter Rothbart and Matthew Ocone, who provided the music throughout the play’s run, on the 28th.