Portland Center Stage Kicks Off JAW: A Playwrights Festival 2013 Today

Portland Center Stage has selected four exciting new plays drawn from a national search for the 2013 JAW: A Playwrights Festival. "The selections this year are a unique reflection of the times we live in," says Festival Director Rose Riordan, "It's exciting to see so many smart Portlanders lining up to see a play reading in July. It might be the air conditioning, but I don't think so."

JAW will run today, July 25 - 27, 2012 at the Gerding Theater at the Armory, and, as always, is presented free of charge and open to all. All JAW events will take place in the Main Stage of the Gerding Theater at the Armory. Readings will take place July 26 and 27 at 4:00pm and 8:00pm. The full performance calendar will be released at a later date.

complex by Dominic Finocchiaro

Something strange is going on in the apartment complex. When residents start turning up dead in ever more gruesome ways, it's left to busybody tenant Todd to sort out the mess and stop the bleeding. A dark comedy about modern living and other forms of mass murder.

Dominic Finocchiaro is an M.F.A. candidate at Columbia University. His writing has been seen all over the country, including at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where he spent the 2011-2012 season as a Dramaturgy/Literary Management Intern. At Actors Theatre, his playsiPorn, or what you crave and That Noise were produced as part of their Apprentice/Intern Company season. New York credits includethe chicken situation (Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival), Connectify (The Flea Theater), LINDSAY/LINDZI (Amoralab, Ugly Rhino), sunday's clown (Communal Spaces), That Noise (Hearth Gods), and Like Trying to Count All the Drops of the Falling Rain (The Secret Theatre). Dominic's work has been a finalist for production at the Hive Theatre and at the Source Festival, and has also been selected for participation in the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. A graduate of Reed College, Dominic has also trained as a writer at the New School for Drama, the Kennedy Center, the Playwrights Foundation and the Pataphysics at The Flea Theater.

The Ocean All Around Us by David Lavine

After a young artist's paintings are destroyed in a studio fire, he struggles to piece together a chain of life-changing events. His older brother, a psychiatrist, tends to him while facing his own transgressions from years past. This powerful, haunting play, is searing with regret and disconcertingly erotic.

David Lavine has had two dozen or so productions in New York and regionally since 1995. Theatres include Fleetwood Stage, Intar (Emerging Artists), New Jersey Rep, MadLab, Chashama, Shetler Studio's Theatre 54, Little Fish Theatre Co., Actors Workout Studio, Kimball Studio Theatre, and both the New York and Columbus Fringe Festivals. He has had readings at New York Theatre Workshop, Naked Angels, Abingdon Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre and South Carolina Repertory Company. David has also received numerous awards and recognitions, including: Finalist, Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference for The Ocean All Around Us; Finalist, Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference for Poking Kitty Purple; Heidi Award, Best Original Short for "Smugglers Three"; and a Scriptapalooza Quarterfinalist for The Unconjoined. David has published 4 Plays by David Lavine, a collection of one-acts published by Original Works; and monologues included in Smith and Kraus's The Ultimate Audition Book, Vol. 4: 222 Comedy Monologues 2 Minutes & Under. David is also a working actor in theatre, film and television.

Threesome by Yussef El Guindi

Leila and Rashid attempt to solve their relationship issues by inviting a relative stranger into their bedroom to engage in a threesome. What begins as a hilariously awkward evening soon becomes an experience fraught with secrets and tension, raising issues of sexism, possession, and independence.

Yussef El Guindi's most recent productions include The Ramayana (co-adaptor) at ACTheatre ; and Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World (winner of the Steinberg/ American Theater Critics Association's New Play Award in 2012; Gregory Award in 2011) also at ACTheatre, and at Center Repertory Company (Walnut Creek, CA) 2013; and Language Rooms (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award), co-produced by Golden Thread Productions and the Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco; at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (premiere), and at the Los Angeles Theater Center. His play Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat was produced by Silk Road Theater Project and won the M. Elizabeth Osborn award. His plays Back of the Throat, Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda's and Karima's City, have been published by Dramatists Play Service. Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World was published in the September, 2012 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

Mai Dang Lao by David Jacobi

During a tense shift at McDonalds, a young employee gives her two-month notice to her oppressive managers. As she is subjected to humiliation and abuse after being accused of theft, the ubiquitous fast food restaurant becomes a warzone where self-improvement, denial and foreign labor practices are used as weapons.

David Jacobi's plays have been produced throughout the U.S. and in Beijing, China. His work has been presented or developed at such places as Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Clemson Brooks Center, Penghao Theater, 798 Dashanzi Art District, WordBRIDGE and Great Plains Theatre Conference. His plays include The Monster Below, Widower, Mai Dang Lao, Battlecruiser Aristotle and Ex Machina. He received a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Purchase College, and is currently a 2015 M.F.A. Candidate at UC San Diego under playwright Naomi Iizuka. David is co-founder of Monster Down! Theatre Company, a collaborative theatre group in Beijing, China.

ABOUT JAW: For 15 years JAW has created a space for playwrights to grow as writers and as professionals. Of the 60 plays that have received workshops at the festival, more than 50% have received world premiere productions at a regional theaters ranging from the NY Theater Workshop to Steppenwolf to Berkeley Rep to Portland's own Third Rail Rep. Twelve JAW plays have later received fully staged productions at Portland Center Stage giving Portland a strong national reputation for not only incubating new work, but helping to see that work to successful fruition. JAW: A Playwrights Festival is made possible in part by funding from The Kinsman Foundation , The National Endowment for the Arts and The Oregon Cultural Trust.

Portland Center Stage inspires our community by bringing stories to life in unexpected ways. Established in 1988 as a branch of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PCS became an independent theater in 1994 and has been under the leadership of Artistic Director Chris Coleman since May 2000. The company presents a blend of classic, contemporary and original productions in a conscious effort to appeal to the eclectic palate of theatergoers in Portland. PCS also offers a variety of education and outreach programs for curious minds from six to 106.

THE GERDING THEATER AT THE ARMORY houses a 599-seat Main Stage and a 200-seat black box Studio. It was the first building on the National Register of Historic Places, and the first performing arts venue, to achieve a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification. The Gerding Theater at the Armory opened to the public on Oct. 1, 2006. The capital campaign to fund the renovation of this hub for community artistic activity continues.