Thursday, August 27, 2026
4pm & 8pm
Q&A to follow each reading
Featuring
New Plays by Julia Izumi and Megan Tabaque
We are downtown this summer!
The New Vic / Ensemble Theatre Company
33 W. Victoria Street
Santa Barbara
THE BANANA FACTORY
by Julia Izumi
directed by Kate Bergstrom
THE RINK AT THE END OF THE WORLD
by Megan Tabaque
directed by Risa Brainin
featuring guest artists Mitchell Thomas and Annie Torsiglieri
The Playwrights...
Julia Izumi’s works include Regretfully, So the Birds Are (Playwrights Horizons/WP Theater), Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt… (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company/New Georges), miku, and the gods. (ArtsWest), Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (Rorschach Theatre, Helen Hayes Award Nomination), and others. Her work has been developed at MTC, Clubbed Thumb, Berkeley Rep, Portland Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, and more. Honors include the Kerry English Award and KCACTF’s Darrell Ayers Playwriting Award. Former Civilians R&D Group and Clubbed Thumb ECWG Member. Current New Dramatists Resident. Current commissions: True Love Productions, MTC/Sloan, Seattle Rep. MFA: Brown University.
Megan Tabaque (she/her) is a playwright, director, and educator who grew up in the suburbs of Florida's Gulf Coast. She writes to create new mythologies using pop cultural tropes as accessible entry points. Her play Britney Approximately (an adaptation of Medea remixed with Britney Spears conservatorship) played to sold-out audiences in Atlanta as part of Theater Emory's 2023 season. Only Reason (co-written with Tony-nominated playwright, Kimberly Bellflower) was nominated for Best New Play by Austin's Critic Circle. Among her other plays: Cycle Play, Batman Returns Returns, Edward Normal Hands, and The Summer Sauron Turned Pretty. Also The Melvin Invention, Antigone's Last Birthday, Phaeton's Driving Test, and Brain Freeze (co-written with Drew Paryzer).
Awards include the Michener Fellowship, Kundiman Fiction Fellowship, Emory Playwriting Fellowship, 4 Seasons Residency, and Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar. She has been a finalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference and Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize and a Semifinalist for the New Dramatist Residency, Princess Grace Award, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and Playwrights' Realm Scratchpad Series.
Megan has an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX and has taught creative writing at Benington College, Emory University, UT Austin, and at non-profit programs for youth across the U.S. She currently resides in Los Angeles, where she works as an Assistant Professor of Playwriting, Screenwriting, and Acting at UC Riverside.
The Directors...
Kate Bergstrom, current Augustin Family Artistic Director of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, is thrilled to return to LAUNCH PAD! Recent new play development work as a director includes the upcoming world premiere of Ann Fran and Mary Ann by Erin Courtney at The Magic Theatre with Stop The Wind Theatricals, You Can’t Hide From Yourself by Erin Courtney at Playwright’s Horizons Soundstage, Letters That you Will Not Get with composer Kirsten Volness at American Opera Projects, Is Edward Snowden Single? by Kate Cortesi at The Pool/New Ohio. Recent projects include Unspeakable, a podcast with SPOKE Media (creator), and Brilliant Mind by Denmo Ibrahim at Marin Theatre Company (director.)
Regional credits include: The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (Ring of Fire, Sherwood and The 39 Steps), Trinity Repertory Company (A Christmas Carol), Marin Theatre Company (Noura, Brilliant Mind), OPC + Playwrights Center (Tomorrow Will Be Sunday, director-dramaturg), Cleveland Play House (Galilee 34 workshop, director), REDCAT (Wholed) and Curious Theatre Company. NY: Ars Nova (HOTBOX, co-creator), Bushwick Starr (Y-Axis, director), La Mama, Culture Hub, Rattlestick, New Dramatists, JACK, Dixon Place and Orchard Project alum. They are a former Ojai Playwrights Conference Affiliated Artist, New Georges Affiliated Artist and former member of the intermedia performance group, h0tclub. Founding Director, On The Verge Festival in Santa Barbara, CA 2015-2023. Central Coast BroadwayWorld.com's 2016 Person to Watch + 2017 Best Director. BA, UCLA + MFA Brown/Trinity Rep. www.katebergstrom.com Photo credit: Antonio T. Harris
Risa Brainin is a freelance director, professor and Founder/Artistic Director of LAUNCH PAD which was featured in American Theatre magazine for its innovation and contribution to new play development. Since 2005, Brainin has developed and directed 20+ new works by distinguished writers including recent plays by Jami Brandli, Mia Chung, Yussef El Guindi, Anne Garcia-Romero, Idris Goodwin, Enid Graham, Arlene Hutton, Jenny Mercein, Joyce Carol Oates, James Still and Cheryl L. West. She pioneered, along with Annie Torsiglieri, the groundbreaking Zoom Festival Alone, Together, a collection of 39 new short plays and monologues written by LAUNCH PAD alums and published by Dramatic Publishing Company.Prior to UCSB, Brainin served as Artistic Director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Associate Artistic Director for both Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Indiana Repertory Theatre, and Resident Director at the Guthrie Theater. Other directorial credits include plays at American Players Theatre, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Clarence Brown Theatre, Commonweal Theatre, Denver Center Theatre, Elements Theatre Collective, Ensemble Theatre, Great Lakes Theater, Gulfshore Playhouse, History Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Illusion Theatre, Kansas City Actors' Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Mixed Blood, New Harmony Project, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Portland Stage Company, Red Bull Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Skylight Theatre, Syracuse Stage and TheatreSquared.
A graduate of the Carnegie-Mellon University Drama Program, Brainin is a member and Past President of the National Theatre Conference, and a member of The College of Fellows of the American Theatre. For more about our Artistic Director please visit her website.