The festival is 12 years old, and Thomas Nabhan, executive director of the nonprofit Theatre 33, notes that he and his staff at the Regional New Play Summer Festival will do something different this year. “We have moved to a rotating repertoire format,” he announces. “God help us.” Kidding aside, the festival will roll out nine performances of six new plays starting July 29 and running through August 10 at Willamette University in Salem. That has been Theatre 33’s permanent home for the past three years, and the staff will be busy. The festival features plays in development, Nabhan points out. There have been more than 60 hours of rehearsal time with playwrights in residence engaged in rewrites, assisted by a dramaturg. Three full productions to be performed twice each at Pelton Theatre are The City and the Sea by Paul Lewis of Seattle, Confabulous by Susan Faust of Portland and We’re All Gonna Make It aka WAGMI by AR Nicholas, also from Portland. The three staged readings in the upstairs Putnam Studio are I Want You by Kathleen Cahill of Portland, Proper, A Steampunk Comedy of Manners by Angela Gyurko of Port Townsend, Washington and Coal is King by Kwik Jones of Portland. Theatre 33 was founded by professors at Willamette University, and Nabhan says the goal for the school and the nonprofit theater is “to be the center of new-play development.”

Theatre 33’s Regional New Play Summer Festival is July 29 through August 10 at Pelton Theatre and Putnam Studio on the campus of Willamette University, 900 State Street, Salem. Times for the performances and staged readings are at Arts.Willamette.edu/theatre. Suggested donation is $18.