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The Plays...
that drive thru monterey
by matthew paul olmos
directed by Rose Portillo
dramaturgs: Sara Sotelo, Eunwoo Yoo
Friday, April 25 | 4 PM
Inspired by the life of my mother. The story of a Mexican-American woman in 1971 Los Angeles as she experiences a first, nerdy love. Throughout the courtship, she experiences mysterious premonitions of what lies ahead in her life and how the ever’present machismo will ultimately bring her heartbreak as it gets passed down from fathers to sons; generation to generation.
The Crossing Party
by Leo Cabranes-Grant
directed by Sara Rademacher
dramaturg: Letty García
guest actor: Angel Villalobos
Friday, April 25 | 8 PM
Two American families - one Anglo, one Mexican - interect their histories in Los Angeles through the friendship of their children. As the political environmnet of the United States becomes less welcoming to migrants, their class and ethnic differences are intensified. Builiding on the topic of crossings, the play intenionally juxtaposes and overlaps times, spaces, cultures, desires, and orientations, creating a vast public mural in which the dead and the living are deeply entangled.
Masters of Fine Arts
by A. Rey Pamatmat
directed by Katherine Chou
dramaturg: William Davies King
Saturday, April 26 | 1 PM
A spy apologizes, and a young man tries to name his fears, as two friends see the future, and some aliens smell ALL the smells. Hidden within a play with no story, is the story of five MFA candidates arguing about whether plays need to have stories… by telling each other stories.
The Rink at the End of the World
by Megan Tabaque
directed by Risa Brainin
dramaturg: Liz Engelman
Saturday, April 26 | 5 PM
A motley crew of mall-rink figure skaters find themselves on a flight to Croatia to compete in the World Synchronized Figure Skating Championships as first-alternates. As they train, complain, destroy, and rebuild each other on their quest to achieve the impossible, something darker looms on the edges of the global stage: a nuclear arms race.
The Playwrights...
matthew paul olmos (that drive thru monterey) is a Mexican-American playwright who focuses on the creation of space for marginalized, underrepresented communities and gives them poetics and theatricality. While his work is always personal, it is aimed at reaching across socio’political boundaries, showing the ridiculous of how separate we are, and illuminating hope for future generations.
Leo Cabranes-Grant (The Crossing Party) is Professor of intercultural and performance studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an award winning scholar, playwright, and poet. He has published books on Lope de Vega and Viceregal Mexico; his most recent monograph analyzes the links between philosophy and performance in the works of Søren Kierkegaard. In addition to four collections of poetry, his plays have been produced in San Juan (Puerto Rico), New York, Boston, Santa Barbara, and Buenos Aires. He was also Chief Editor of the prestigious journal Theatre Survey, published by Cambridge University Press and the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). At present he is director of Theater Studies at UCSB and Series Editor for Springer’s Transnational Theatre Histories.
A. Rey Pamatmat (Masters of Fine Arts) Rey’s plays include Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (Actors Theatre of Louisville), after all the terrible things I do (Milwaukee Rep), House Rules (Ma-Yi), Thunder Above, Deeps Below (Second Generation), A Spare Me (Waterwell), and DEVIANT. His most recent work includes True / Story, based on a true story, Masters of Fine Arts, and Safe, Three Queer Plays, which follows the seismic changes in Queer America through a gay man of color’s life. Rey’s plays have been translated into Spanish and Russian, performed in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Russia, and published by Concord Theatricals, Playscripts, Cambria Press, and Vintage. Television work includes The Wilds and N0S4A2. Rey was a founding member and former co-director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and was a PoNY, Hodder, and Princess Grace Fellow.
Megan Tabaque (The Rink at the End of the World) is Filipina-Canadian writer, actor, and arts educator. Her work has been developed, commissioned, and produced by the Alliance Theater, Salvage Vanguard Theater, Tofte Lake Center, the Workshop Theater, Paper Chairs, and Theatrical Outfit among others. She is a James A. Michener Fellow, Kundiman Fiction Fellow, Sewanee Writers’ Conference Scholar, Seattle Public Theater Emerald Prize finalist, Playwrights’ Realm Scratchpad Series semi-finalist, was the 2021 - 2023 Emory Playwriting Fellow, and is the 2024 - 2025 Four Seasons Resident Playwright. She’s also written for the immersive weirdos at Meow Wolf, assisted award winning TV writer Sheila Callaghan, and taught creative writing at Bennington College, Emory University, and UT Austin. Megan earned her MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX. She currently resides in Los Angeles, where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of California Riverside.
The Directors...
Rose Portillo (that drive thru monterey) is an accomplished actor/writer/director/educator and visual artist whose stage and film career began with a lead role in Luis Valdez's Zoot Suit (original LA production, Broadway, and Film). She is Associate Director of About Productions, now celebrating 24 years of creating original theaterworks; and founded the company's Young Theaterworks, which serves students in Continuation/Options High Schools primarily in East Los Angeles.She has directed in Los Angeles and at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis, and recently directed an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest for Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles' award-winning Will Power to Youth. Along with Theresa Chavez, Rose has been honored by Playwrights' Arena with the Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Los Angeles Theatre Community.
Sara Rademacher (The Crossing Party) is a co-intentional theatre director. Locally, she was the Producing Director of the new works reading and development projects OTV Reads (SB) and The Home Project, the Co-Founder and former Artistic Director of Elements Theatre Collective whose mission centered on accessibility, and the co-creator of The Outlet Project, a virtual arena of catharsis and connection for creatives in response to the social distancing of Covid-19. As a director, Sara has worked throughout the country and abroad; her work has spanned theatrical genres, directing classic, contemporary, experimental, musical theater and opera, and new plays. New work development and directing credits include projects with Launchpad, The Lark, Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange, PEN World Voices Int’l Fest, Anita Gonzalez and Dan Furman, Segal Center in NY, Tidewater Opera Initiative, Columbia University, The Devising Collective at University of KwaZulu-Natal, DETEXT at Museum of Art and Design, NY. She has worked as a mentor and educator with DePaul University, University of Michigan, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, Ensemble Theatre, 7Devils New Play Foundry, and more. Most recently, she directed a production of Sanctuary City by Martyna Majok at PCPA. Sara holds an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University and is a proud member of SDC. www.SaraRademacher.com
Katherine Chou (Masters of Fine Arts) is a writer, filmmaker, and theatre artist. Her work in theatre encompasses directing, producing, and dramaturgy with Artists at Play, South Coast Repertory, IAMA Theatre Company, Boston Court Pasadena, A Noise Within, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, Occidental College, and the Denver Center for Performing Arts. As a filmmaker, her work has screened internationally and received support from the Armed With a Camera Fellowship, Starz, Women in Film, The Wrap, and CAPE. Previously, she worked in post-production on films at Warner Bros., 20th Century Studios, and HBO. A graduate of L’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, she has called many places home, including France, Montreal, and Taipei.
Risa Brainin (The Rink at the End of the World) 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.
The Dramaturgs...
Sara Sotelo (that drive thru monterey) is a first year MA candidate in the Theater, Dance and Performance Studies Department. Sara has been a dramaturg for about 4 years working on productions such as classics like Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephans and new works such as Smoked Out: Watching Them Scrape Our Homes Away by Carl Erez and Unibeauty and Her Wicked Daughters by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and LAUNCH PAD's Preview Production of Strange Birds by E. M. Lewis. She received her BA in History and her BA in Education from the University of Santa Cruz in 2023 (Go Slugs!). While there she worked with many incredible artists who drove her love of theater to new heights and ultimately helped her get here. A Los Angeles county native, her community is what she strives to make proud and continue to help in her own unique way.
Eunwoo Yoo (that drive thru monterey) is a Ph.D. candidate in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Fulbrighter from South Korea. Her research lies at the intersection of food studies, performance studies, and critical race studies. By examining food practices within the context of early modern nation-building and race-making in the Anglophone world, her work reveals how food shaped ideas of Englishness. Beyond her primary interests in race, food, and performance, her interdisciplinary research curiosities encompass affect, embodiment, corporeality, race and representation, gender and sexuality, Shakespeare and global Shakespeare, empire studies, and post-colonial studies.
Committed to theatrical practice as well as scholarship, she has also served as a dramaturg or an assistant director for multiple productions on and off campus. Some of the productions include: UCSB Naked Shakes production of Immortal Longings, UCSB LAUNCH PAD staged reading of Replaced, The Public Domain Players’ production of The Tempest, and Prague Shakespeare Company’s production of The Winter’s Tale. Eunwoo also held the position of Public Relations Chair for The Public Domain Players, a student-run theater company, for two years.
Letty García (The Crossing Party) serves as an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at UC Santa Barbara. Her research and writing focus on various topics, including Shakespeare, critical race theory, pedagogy, cultural practices and productions, performance theory, as well as Latinx and Chicanx film and teatro. As an arts advocate, dramaturg, and community-centered educator, Letty is excited to return and support LAUNCH PAD!
William Davies King (Masters of Fine Arts) is the (Nearly Extinguished) Distinguished Professor of Theater at UCSB. His graduate education began in playwriting, migrated to dramaturgy (one of those Masters of Fine Arts), then somehow led to theater historical scholarship. Dave has written books about late-Victorian actors, Wallace Shawn, and collecting nothing (ask if you're curious), also Eugene O'Neill and Eugene O'Neill and Eugene O'Neill. His most recent book is Finding the Way to Long Day's Journey Into Night: Eugene O'Neill and Carlotta Monterey at Tao House (Anthem Press, 2024), and he has written a dramatic version of that book, called Into Night: A Day at Tao House, which was performed at Tao House (a National Historic Site in Danville, California) and in Boston in 2022.
Liz Engelman (The Rink at the End of the World) is the founder and Executive Director of Tofte Lake Center at Norm’s Fish Camp, an interdisciplinary creative retreat center adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota. Liz moved back to Minneapolis from Austin, TX, where she taught in the Playwriting/Directing Area at UT Austin. Liz has served as the Alumnae Relations Coordinator at Hedgebrook, a retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island, as Resident Dramaturg at Mixed Blood Theatre, as the Literary Director of the McCarter Theatre, the Director of New Play Development at ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington, Literary Manager/Dramaturg at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, and as Assistant Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Liz has worked on the development of new plays across the country and abroad, including The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, ASK Theatre Projects, New York Theatre Workshop, the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, South Coast Rep, Denver Center, and Florida Stage. She has directed new plays at The Illusion Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and Carleton College. Liz studied dramaturgy and new play development at Brown and Columbia universities, where she received her BA and MFA in theatre and dramaturgy, respectively.
Liz has served as President, Board Chair and Board Member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA). She is on the board of the National New Play Network and is a member of the National Theatre Conference.
Guest Actor...
Angel Villalobos (The Crossing Party) is an artist from LA. His acting, directing, and teaching artistry includes work at Berkeley Rep, CTG, The Actors’ Gang, Cincinnati Playhouse, Theatricum Botanicum, Prague Shakespeare Company, Boxtales Theatre, LAPC Theatre, Teatro Frida Kahlo, Teatro de las Americas, and LAUSD. BFA,BA: UCSB.