Launch Pad, a development program for new plays, is moving their annual dramatic reading series to the New Vic Theatre on August 27. This year’s program features two works-in-progress: Julia Izumi’s The Banana Factory (directed by Kate Bergstrom) at 4 p.m., and Megan Tabaque’s The Rink at the End of the World (directed by Launch Pad program director Risa Brainin) at 8 p.m.
Brainin describes both plays as being about young people living in today’s world. “The Banana Factory is about activism and how young people are looking at the choices they’re making. The Rink at the End of the World centers around a synchronized skate team practicing for a competition when the world starts to change dramatically, and they are forced to deal with it,” she says. “Both plays address thinking about how to save our world in a comical, fresh way.”
(Launch Pad will present a fully produced run of The Rink at the End of the World in the spring of 2027, giving audiences a chance to see the play evolve.)
This year’s writers in residence, Izumi and Tabaque, arrived at Launch Pad through an association of new-work-development programs called the 4 Seasons Residency. Every year, 4 Seasons elects a writer to have an experience at each of their four venues: Idaho’s Seven Devils New Plays Foundry, Minnesota’s Tofte Lake Center, Philadelphia’s Ignition Arts, and Launch Pad. While Launch Pad’s summer reading series was previously attached to a summer course (and therefore featured mostly student performers), this year’s productions are independent from any official classes, allowing the pool of actors to include alumni and community talent. “I love giving our alumni work,” says Brainin. “It’s so important to me — building a bridge for them.”
Reserve your seats for this free reading series at the New Vic Theatre through the link at Launch Pad’s reading series webpage:launchpad.theaterdance.ucsb.edu/reading-series/2026.
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