NEA Grant for JAW: A Playwrights Festival 2017
Portland Center Stage at The Armory has been selected to receive a $35,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, one of $30 million in grants approved by NEA Chairman Jane Chu for fiscal year 2017.
The NEA’s Art Works category focuses on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts. The $35,000 Art Works grant was awarded in support of the 2017 JAW: A Playwrights Festival, which takes place this coming July.
Launched in 1999, JAW (short for “Just Add Water”) has always had the playwright and the creative process as its focus. Over the past 17 years, more than 60 new plays developed at JAW have gone on to be produced at 116 theaters throughout North America and the U.K., among them works by Dan O’Brien (whose multi-award-winning The Body of an American was featured at JAW in 2011), Yussef El Guindi, Elizabeth Heffron, Adam Bock, Jordan Harrison and Kimberly Rosenstock.
JAW 2017 begins with artists in residence starting July 17. The Big Weekend is scheduled for July 28-30. As always, the JAW Big Weekend is FREE to the public. For more information on JAW, please visit pcs.org/JAW and check back in early summer for this year’s JAW schedule of events.
Portland Center Stage is committed to identifying & interrupting instances of racism & all forms of oppression, through the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, & accessibility (IDEA).