This project is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Oregon Cultural Trust: Oregonians sustaining, developing and participating in our arts, heritage and humanities.

JAW: A Playwrights Festival

July 15-29, 2013

JAW is Portland Center Stage’s developmental festival of new work for the stage. For two crazy weeks in July, JAW: A Playwrights Festival takes over the Armory, inside and out. And as always, we’ll present spanking new works in progress that will explode your expectations of what live performance can do.

Since launching in 1999, JAW's principal focus continues to be the playwright and the creative process. For two weeks, four-to-six playwrights (chosen from over 200 submissions nationwide) collaborate with directors, dramaturgs, actors, and other theater professionals from across the U.S. to read, revise, and sometimes completely re-write their scripts, discovering through the process what does or does not work in the transition from page to stage. Joining them are “Promising Playwrights,” 4-to-6 high school students selected from PCS’s Visions & Voices program, who write and develop their own short plays, working alongside the professionals. All of the playwrights’ works are then presented in staged readings for the public. 

Since 2007, JAW: A Playwrights Festival has been entirely free to the public, offering a wide range of events that celebrate creativity and community.

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JAW 2013 PLAYS |  JAW SCHEDULE  | MADE IN OREGON | DEVISE & CONQUER | ARTIST LABS | JAW STAFF | JAW HISTORY | SCRIPT SUBMISSION