This year’s JAW playwrights are bringing a fascinating mix of ideas and characters to PCS stages in July. You can’t read the plays in advance, of course, but you can prep for your JAW experience with the following books related to the plays, all available at Powells:

- Starvation Heights . Gregg Olsen’s true crime novel about a quack doctor at the turn of the last century who lured women into “fasting cures” that often led to their deaths has been adapted for the stage by Ginny Foster. Read the book now…check out the staged reading during our Made In Oregon series on July 9th at 7:30 pm.

- The Uses of Enchantment. Bruno Betelheim’s seminal study explored how fairy tales can be useful tools in childhood’s quest to make sense of emotions and to develop a coherent inner life. His life and ideas, along with the writings of a high-functioning autistic woman named Temple Grandin, inspired playwright Carson Kreitzer to question the nature of faith, hope and humanity itself. The Workshop Reading of Enchantment will be on Sunday, July 20th at 8:00 pm.

- The Collected Works of Constance Congdon . She’s one of America’s most celebrated avant-garde playwrights. She’ll be gracing us with a Workshop Reading of her new play Paradise Street at 8:00 pm on Saturday July 19th, about a professor who discovers an imposter has been doing her lecture circuit. Bone up on Congdon’s past work, including the seminal Tales of the Lost Formicans, with this collection of her other plays.

- Woyzeck . Sally Oswald’s point of departure for her play Pony is a landmark of dramatic literature, Georg Bucher’s eerie, tense Woyzeck. Sally starts where Buchner leaves off; her characters refer directly to the original play’s climactic murder, which seems to catalyze events around a neighborhood in transition. We soon see that the citizens of this “queer microcosm” are also in transition, as they morph psychically and physically. Alternately disturbing and drily funny, this story exploring the fluidity and ambiguity of gender receives its Workshop Reading at JAW on Sunday July 20th at 4:00 pm.

- Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies . An innocent game of D&D goes disastrously wrong in Hunt Holman’s Willow Jade, which will be staged as part of our Made In Oregon reading series on Thursday July 10th at 7:30 p.m.

Unless you’re like my housemates and have custom painted Mage dwarf figurines and an exhaustive collection of twenty-sided die, you may want to bone up on your basic nerdlore with this accessible introduction to the mysteries of fantasy role-gaming (Mountain Dew and velvet hooded cloaks sold separately). Already a level 20 elf halfling? Pick up the just released 4th Edition Player’s Handbook . Just try to come out of the basement in time to catch the reading, ok? You’ve got a few weeks, you can do it.

Never can find a quiet spot to read at home? Cozy couches and quiet spaces abound in the Armory lobby, which is open to the public all day Tuesday through Sunday. Feel free to pick up one of these JAW prep books at Powells, then wander across the street snag a snack at the Armory Cafe , and settle in to one of the mezzanine couches for a little light reading.

All the JAW readings and workshops are FREE, and many of them include the opportunity to provide moderated feedback to the playwrights. We look forward to seeing you in July!

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