SUMMER LAUNCH PAD: New Plays in Process invites three professional playwrights to join the UCSB community as artists in residence in a summer course.  The collaboration between LAUNCH PAD Artistic Director Risa Brainin, a team of undergraduate students and the playwrights culminates in public readings and open rehearsals.

Click HERE to read the UC Santa Barbara Current's article about the LAUNCH PAD: New Plays in Process series.

Deborah Brevoort’s The Velvet Weapon

A backstage farce, The Velvet Weapon, takes place at the National Theatre of an unnamed country, in an unnamed city.  A matinee audience rises up in protest and begins their own impromptu performance.  Inspired by her research in Prague in 2005, in which she interviewed forty-three ringleaders of the Velvet Revolution, Brevoort stages populist democracy as a battle between highbrow and lowbrow art. 

Deborah Brevoort is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which is performed throughout the United States and internationally.  She is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe Award.  Her work has been produced at Virginia Stage, Purple Rose, Barter Theatre, Perseverance Theatre, Mixed Blood and numerous others and has been published by DPS, Samuel French, Applause Books and No Passport Press.  Brevoort teaches in the MFA programs at Goddard College, Columbia University and NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS TO UCSB

Driving to UCSB from the north:
Take highway 101 South to the Glen Annie/Storke Rd exit; turn right onto Storke Rd and follow across Hollister Ave to El Colegio Rd. Turn left. El Colegio Rd will take you directly onto campus. At Ocean Rd, turn right, then park in Lot 23 an open lot on the left. When you park in that lot, you’ll see the Theater/Dance building in front of you across the bike path (Faculty Club is on the right and we are on the left.)  Go through the glass door and room 1507 is halfway down the hall on your left.

Driving to USCB from the south:
Take Highway 101 North to the Los Carneros Rd. Exit. (Do NOT exit at HWY 217, due to construction.)  Turn left onto Los Carneros Rd.  After .9 mile, turn left onto El Colegio Rd., which will lead you directly onto campus.  At Ocean Rd, turn right, then park in Lot 23 an open lot on the left. When you park in that lot, you’ll see the Theater/Dance building in front of you across the bike path (Faculty Club is on the right and we are on the left.)  Go through the glass door and room 1507 is halfway down the hall on your left.

This program is supported by the UCSB Summer Sessions Cultural Enrichment Grant and the UCIRA Open Classroom Grant.