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Author Idris Goodwin and Linguistics Professor and Director of the Language and Neural Systems Lab McNeel Janzen collaborated with theater faculty, students and alumni to bring a new, original play to life. 

“King of the Neuro Verse” is based on the novel by Goodwin about a high school student named Pernell — played by 2025 theatre alumnus and Kennedy Center honoree Ella Newborn — who is struggling with ADHD and, as a result, is stuck in his third year of summer school. The year is 1999 and the landscape of diagnosis, medication and therapy was less understood by teachers, parents and friends. 

Pernell’s great love is rap. He participates in the school’s cypher rap battle, competing to become Cypher King. His supposed disability that plagues him in the classroom and other areas of his life gives him wings in the cypher circle. 

Goodwin, who also adapted the play for �������� is the former artistic director of Seattle Children’s Theater and is now an associate professor of dramatic writing at Arizona State University. His background in rap and poetry inform the script's style, with its moments of rap and poetry woven throughout the dialogue.

Previous Summer Test Kitchen productions include: "American Prom," also by  Goodwin; an adaptation of William Steig's "Dr. DeSoto," and an adaptation of "The Snow Queen." All of these were performed with the Seattle Children's Theater. After being workshopped at ��������, the plays are staged in other theaters.

The Summer Test Kitchen is exactly that: a place where Goodwin along with Assistant Professor Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy, Professor Rich Brown (who performs as Pernell’s dad) and Professor Evan Mueller (director) and the student and alumni cast gather and workshop the script. What jokes land? What moments have resonance? 

It’s a place to take risks, try new ideas, talk through the backgrounds of the characters. 

“What are the opportunities here?” Goodwin asks the actors.

It was in that flow of conversation, edits and context that Jantzen joined the Test Kitchen to offer her expertise about cognitive neuroscience and research related to neurodevelopment and mental health. 

“This is true STEAM right here,” said Mueller, “bringing together neuroscience and neurodevelopment expertise and the art of theater.”

Jantzen brought the perspective that there’s still much we don’t know about neurodevelopment and mental health, and that our quick reaction to medicate those who live with neurodevelopmental disorders and/or mental health issues is perhaps too hasty.

“Is Dr. Yesler (the psychiatrist in the play) genuinely here to help Pernell, or just pushing pills? Medication can be so much about making the people around the person feel better rather than for the person themself,” she said.

Pernell believes that his ability to win the cypher is also the very thing that challenges him: his ADHD. A chorus of the actors performs the noise and agita of the thoughts of someone with ADHD.

Newborn said that he was happy to see the story deal with race as well as neurodiversity.

“So many of these narratives are centered around white men. It’s nice to have this one around someone who isn’t white,” he said. 

During the workshop, the actors shared their perspectives on therapy and their personal experiences with ADHD and other neurodiverse conditions. Their conversation offered some insight and context about Pernell’s struggle with his mother, who wants him to seek therapy; his father, who wants him to perform better in school;  and his rigid teacher, who wants Pernell to enthusiastically participate in the classroom.

“We’re always trying to find translations and applications for research to therapeutic, clinical, and educational settings. In education, especially at the high school and college level, we approach these things from a top-down rather than bottom-up approach,” Jantzen said.

In the end, Pernell finds hope and joy in his ability to rap and sees how his skills there can inform the more challenging areas of his life. 

“We are so lucky to all have what Pernell has: art. For us, it’s the theater. Art saves us. I know I was lucky to find theater,” Mueller said.

The subsequent project for the Summer Test Kitchen was “,” the first feature film script to be developed, cast and produced by �������� and special guests: siblings Sherri Bylenga and �������� alumnus Jeremy Urann who both grew up in Spokane where "Hot Shots" takes place.

��������’s Summer Test Kitchen is made possible by the generosity of Maureen O’Reilly. 

Frances Badgett covers the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Fine and Performing Arts Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at badgetf@wwu.edu.