The Latino Network's Ballet Folklórico dancers
A performance by the Latino Network’s Ballet Folklórico students, a program that honors and promotes Mexican culture, heritage, and identity through traditional dance classes and performances for youth and the community. Youth learn traditional dances of the various regions while gaining an appreciation for the lyrical, musical and colorful culture and traditions of Mexico.
JAW New Play Festival FREE! July 28-30
A week-long assembling of artists and audiences to create new plays! Artistic teams, including playwrights, directors and actors, come together to rehearse — and a lot of times rewrite! — a play. The final piece of the process happens during the weekend, when we share “music stands readings” with audiences so the playwrights can hear their work, often for the very first time!
Current & Upcoming
JAW Street Dance Showcase
Join us as we kick things off for JAW weekend with this wildly popular yearly showcase, presented by DJ NorthernDraw and featuring street, club, and urban dance styles, performed by artists from a variety of local Portland area dance crews and institutions.
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-Zenen Trujillo.
Improvisation Classes for Beginners
Whether you're looking to get more confident in social situations, think quicker on your feet, or get in touch with your imaginative side, these "one-off" improv classes will set you on the path to success!
Portland Center Stage is committed to identifying & interrupting instances of racism & all forms of oppression, through the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, & accessibility (IDEA).
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