The JAW New Play Festival returns
For a PRIDE Themed Weekend
A summer tradition for over two decades, JAW is a vibrant, community-powered celebration of new work, featuring staged readings, workshops, and performances from local musicians, dancers, and creators.
All JAW events are FREE and open to anyone!
The 2025 JAW line up lights up the Ellyn Bye Studio Theater during Portland’s PRIDE month with all queer-themed shows this season, featuring a gorgeous new musical, and brilliant new plays, in addition to five short-plays by talented local teens. Brought to life by beloved Portland actors and talent from across the country, these script-in-hand readings are works in progress of a new canon of 21st century plays. Join us to be part of a weekend of fabulous, wild new work!
This Year's Plays
Schedule subject to change.
JAW Play Reading: The Sugar Hole
By Virginia Baeta and Amy Driesler
A rent increase for a legendary lesbian bar threatens its existence, and Darcy has a plan to save it. Is the 90's-themed Lesbian Pageant she dreams up as a fundraiser the answer? Or do the lesbians around her have different ideas about what needs to be saved? The Sugar Hole skips through time and space—real and imagined—exploring what it means to be a lesbian in a lesbian community, the importance of spaces for queer people, and what makes someone feel they belong. Part zany comedy, part pageant, and fully heart-filled, The Sugar Hole speaks directly to what makes a community, a community.
JAW Play Reading: Teen Playwrights Showcase
Celebrate the newest generation of theater artists in this high-energy showcase of 8-10 minute plays written by local teens. These young writers are selected from PCS’s year-round education programs and the PCS Teen Council. The playwrights are commissioned to create bold new works that reflect their voices and experiences.
JAW Play Reading: Out There
Created by William Carlos Angulo, Isaac Gómez & Michelle J. Rodriguez
Music & Lyrics by Michelle J Rodriguez
Book by Isaac Gómez
When MJ, a once-great musician turned recluse, summons his best friends to his beach house with a "code red," old tensions and buried secrets resurface as the characters confront their shared pasts and uncertain futures. A PCS Commission, Out There is a richly layered story about family, love, and redemption told through the intersecting lives of three lifelong best friends—MJ, David, and Lars—and the people bound to them, in this deeply resonant portrait of connection. Set against the Pacific Northwest’s storm-lashed coastlines, and bustling cityscapes, Out There offers breathtaking music and heart-bending harmonies that will leave you on the edge of your seat! Be the first to catch this gem of a new musical before it launches into the world.
JAW Play Reading: Say Gay Plays
A not to be missed rocking time of new short-plays by top American playwrights with something to say! Conceived in response to the 2022 passage of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, Voyage Theater Company Founding Artistic Director Wayne Maugans’ SAY GAY PLAYS offers short plays by queer playwrights to for LGBTQ+ communities across America. In a collaboration between Say Gay Plays, Fuse Theatre Ensemble and Portland Center Stage, the JAW lineup includes a fabulous range of work from searing satire to heartfelt moments, featuring playwrights Fernanda Coppel, Marquis D. Gibson, Haruna Lee, Derick Edgren Otero, Harrison David Rivers, SMJ, Doug Wright, and the premiere of a new piece from Portland playwright, Carlos-Zenin Trujillo.
Press Play
In addition to the JAW Play Readings, the festival will the following feature Press Play performances surrounding the readings.
- FRI 7/25, 6:30-7:15: Street Dance Showcase w/ DJ NorthernDraw
- SAT 7/26, 3:15-3:50: Bridging Voices Choir
- SAT 7/26, 6:45-7:20: Latino Network's Ballet Folklorico
- SUN 7/27, 12:00-12:45: REST JOY PLAY: A Queer Literaoke (Drag Edition!!) presented by Liminal Bodies
About JAW
The JAW New Play Festival is Portland Center Stage’s week-long assembling of artists and audiences to create new plays! Each July, artistic teams, including playwrights, directors, and actors, come together to rehearse — and a lot of times rewrite! — a new play. The final piece of the process happens during the weekend, when we share “music stand readings” with audiences so the playwrights can hear their work, often for the very first time!
Why We JAW:
- Develop energizing work
- We are committed to developing dope plays!
- Champion exciting voices
- We are invested in playwright-driven artistic growth, giving opportunities to fresh, engaging, powerful theatrical voices.
- Connect with our communities
- We believe that audiences are active participants in the creation of new work. The audience is the final collaborator an artistic team needs to bring a play to life.
In addition to new play readings, Portland Center Stage presents Press Play events during the JAW festival weekend. To welcome people into the space, we offer pre-show performances and workshops, featuring dynamic local artists. These events include an ever-changing lineup of dance exhibitions of all genres, live music, visual art, choreographed movement showcases, interactive installations, and artist labs. All JAW events are free to the public and help introduce new audiences and community members to the breadth of talent in our city, and beyond.
JAW History
Since 1999, JAW has created a space for 92 playwrights to develop 95 plays. Most have gone on to receive professional productions across the country, including many world premieres at PCS.
Accessibility Info
Portland Center Stage is committed to making our facilities accessible to all of our patrons. Wheelchair seating, accommodation for service animals, sign interpretation, and sound amplifying devices, and large print programs are available for JAW. For more information about these services, please visit our accessibility page.
Portland Center Stage is committed to identifying & interrupting instances of racism & all forms of oppression, through the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, & accessibility (IDEA).
JAW Sponsors
Teen Playwrights Sponsors
Season Superstars
Season Supporting Sponsors