{photo: Brooke Bloom takes center stage in A Feminine Ending, a play which was developed as part of Portland Center Stage’s JAW festival.}

Sometimes people ask me, “What is this, ‘JAW‘ anyway?” Allow me to fill you in.

Just Add Water (affectionately known as JAW, and sometimes referred to – incorrectly – as JAWS) is a new play development festival that began here at PCS ten years ago. Liz Huddle, my predecessor, felt that Portland Center Stage needed to make a leap into the creation of new work, and had the brilliant foresight to call Jim Nicola at New York Theater Workshop. NYTW is one of the most adventurous theaters in the world, and has developed a robust methodology for creating deep relationships between artists and institutions – and for helping nurture the creation of new work.

New York Theater Workshop was already doing a festival of new works that they called Just Add Water – so the Portland incarnation began life as Just Add Water/West (JAW/West). Creative staff from NY worked alongside PCS staff for the first three years, until they said, “Hey – you guys know how to do this on your own. Go for it!”

The festival is a veritable kaleidoscope of original playwriting, with a regional series (“Made in Oregon”), site-specific pieces, labs for writers, and much more (consult the JAW calendar for the full roster). But its centerpiece offerings have always been four new full-length works. From about 150 scripts, four are selected, and the writers are paired with a team of professional directors, actors and dramaturgs. For a quick ten day period the team works feverishly in the rehearsal hall, while the playwright reworks material overnight and brings it back in the next day. At the end of the ten days, a staged version of the script is shown before an audience – and a feedback session happens afterward.

The process can prove invaluable for the playwright. As you can imagine, the writer has been sitting in front of a computer for months banging the draft into a shape they are happy with. But until you hear live actors speaking the story in front of an audience, it can be difficult to truly understand what you have created, and what is communicating.

{photo:A quiet moment in the world premiere of Sometimes a Great Notion, which was workshopped at last year’s JAW. Pictured top to bottom: Andy Patterson and P.J. Sosko as Hank and Joe Ben, Karl Miller as Leland, Sarah Grace Wilson as Vivian and Tobias Andersen as Henry.}

At PCS, each year that I’ve been here – we’ve subsequently produced one of the scripts from JAW in our subscription season (Flesh and Blood, Outrage, Another Fine Mess, O Lovely Glowworm, Celebrity Row, Act a Lady, A Feminine Ending and Sometimes a Great Notion).

And scripts from JAW have gone on to find productions at Third Rail Rep, Stark Raving Theatre and Sand and Glass Productions here in Portland; Actor’s Express in Atlanta; the Illusion in Minneapolis; South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, CA; the Long Wharf and Yale Rep in New Haven; Actor’s Theater of Louisville; Interact and The Wilma in Philadelphia; and Cherry Lane, Playwrights Horizons and New York Theater Workshop in Manhattan.

This year in addition to the four readings of new plays, we are adding a musical component as we workshop Crazy Enough, Storm Large’s new show. Join us! All events are free.

more blogs about JAW || About Jaw || Complete JAW Schedule || Made in Oregon || Big Weekend || Other Events