This year’s edition of Launchpad, UCSB Theater Department’s artist residency and performance program for new plays, features “WE WANT THE FUNK, a rustbelt lullaby on the one!” written by multi-talented Idris Goodwin.
In a round (well, yeah, it’s a rectangle) table give and take session, playwright, director Risa Brainin, actors and production team explore the motivations and emotions, meanings and intentions of the characters and the play. They read a bit from the script and then take it from there in a really exciting exchange of ideas. This happens at the beginning of every new production, but since this is a new play, never before performed, there is more freedom to explore and discover. There was electricity in the air!