Table | Room | Stage
a home for new works
Table|Room|Stage (T|R|S) is Artists Rep’s new play program — a space to develop and produce new work that vividly expresses ART’s aesthetic values. Founded in 2015 with a focus on work by BIPOC, women, LGBTQIA+, and gender nonconforming writers, T|R|S expanded in 2025 to center Pacific Northwest playwrights, building on that same commitment to voices too often overlooked by the American theatre. T|R|S gives these writers room to create provocative, intimate new work that captivates, challenges, and transforms.
T|R|S serves playwrights in three ways:
At the Table
We sit down with regional playwrights for dramaturgical conversations that help their plays find their best version.
In the Room
We workshop plays by Portland writers over four intensive days.
On the Stage
We produce new work — premieres and second productions of the most vibrant, relevant, and surprising plays by Pacific Northwest writers.
Our Aesthetic Values
We are drawn to work that:
- Explores the edges, depths, and heights of human experience
- Uses language with originality and vibrancy
- Embodies a muscular narrative structure and rigorous intelligence
- Offers a distinctly theatrical experience and embraces liveness as an essential quality
- Risks failure rather than repeats formula
- Has an opinion and seeks to change the conversation
- Stands at an angle to the world and shows us something anew
- Re-imagines how theatre is made and shared
- Is sparked by the fearless imagination of living playwrights of the Pacific Northwest
AT THE TABLE
2026/27 Season applications are due 9/15/2026- Free, playwright-guided sessions offering dramaturgical incubation and support for new plays
- Open to writers living in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, or British Columbia
- Up to four 60-minute conversations with ART’s staff dramaturgs, in person or over Zoom
- Flexibly scheduled around the playwright’s process
- Four projects served each year through an application-based process
IN THE ROOM
- Four-day workshops developing new plays discovered at the Fertile Ground Festival
- Direction and dramaturgy led by ART’s artistic staff
- Playwrights receive a participation fee; actors and stage manager work under an Equity contract
- Two pre-workshop conversations between playwright and artistic staff to set goals
- A public sharing of the play at the workshop’s culmination is optional, at the playwright’s discretion
- Two plays from the 2026 Fertile Ground Festival have been selected for development in the 26/27 season. We’re building out the selection process for future years.