Launch Pad Summer Reading Series: Elocutia Do(es) Pygmalion by Cheryl L. West, Directed by Risa Brainin

Launch Pad, an artist and performance program at UC Santa Barbara presents their 2020 Summer Reading Series. Four plays will be performed with a Q&A to follow.

Online viewing link: https://bit.ly/2O6jXEV

Cheryl L. West’s plays have been seen on Broadway (Play On!), Off-Broadway and in England as well as numerous regional theaters including: Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Rep Theatre, Arena Stage, Old Globe Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Indiana Rep Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Bay Street Theatre Festival, Syracuse Stage, Cleveland Play House, South Coast Rep Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and off‐Broadway’s Manhattan Theatre Club, The Atlantic Theatre, Second Stage and Primary Stages. Her plays include: Shout Sister, Shout!, The Watsons Go To Birmingham - 1963, Fannie, Last Stop on Market Street, Akeelah and the Bee, Pullman Porter Blues, Motherhood Out Loud (co-author); Addie, American Girl Story (21-city tour); and Jar the Floor. She has written TV and film projects at Disney, Paramount, MTV Films, Showtime, TNT, HBO, CBS and is the Webby-nominated writer for the original web series Diary of a Single Mom.  Ms. West is currently working on commissions for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Seattle Rep Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Children’s Theater, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre and UC Santa Barbara’s LAUNCH PAD Program.

Elocutia Do(es) Pygmalion

When Elocutia meets Professor Herbert on the University of Chicago campus, each of them meets their match. The professor tries to tame her wild tongue, and Elocutia teaches the teacher about being his authentic self. A Black riff on Shaw’s Pygmalion, with comic twists and turns and sharp-eyed observations about race, class, and language-based identity.

(photo credit for Cheryl L. West: Abe Booker)