The Northwest Playwrights Alliance is well into high gear as the summer theater season begins around the South Sound.



NPA has again partnered with the University of Puget Sound to stage the Double Shot Festival this weekend.



This year’s festival will feature 16 playwrights and directors and more than 60 actors representing theater programs and dramatic efforts around the South Sound and beyond. The effort has drawn talent from as far away as Centralia and Bellingham.



It is an opportunity to see some of the best new works in development, many of which are graduates of the NPA playwriting farm system. The depth and breadth of the Doubleshot effort is expanding in its success as NPA shuffles things around a bit to further its growth.



“What we want to do is start (to) pay our actors at least something, so that we can use Equity actors without getting in trouble,” says NPA organizer Bryan Willis. “Just paying them $25 a pop is really a nice thing to do.”



Professional actors have to be members of the actors’ union, which requires that its members must be paid each time they perform or risk losing their union membership. Providing even just a small stipend allows the theater group to open the doors to a wide roster of actors a gratis theater can’t access and steps up not only the potential quality of the performances but helps to draw in audiences since better known actors have a tendency to bring their own followings.



“We already have been getting some wonderful attention,” Willis says. “We have gotten national press coverage that has really been positive. Even some of the Seattle media has caught on to what we are doing. I really think we are on a roll.”



NPA staged a Northwest Playwrights Festival last year that drew good responses from audiences that were supportive although small through its run. The low attendance but positive response translates into the festival likely returning eventually, but not this summer or as an annual event.



“I think if we did it every year we would die,” Willis says. “There is just so much work that goes into it.”



But there is also some bad news for South Sound playwright-watchers. In the fall NPA is set to move its monthly stage readings of local works from the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts rehearsal hall in Tacoma to a space in the Emerald City. The NPA will move the readings to the Seattle Repertory in September. It has to do with money and numbers.



Broadway Center charges $80 a month. The new lease means an increase to $110 each night, Willis says. That money could go toward paying actors and directors in Seattle since the Rep is donating the space to the playwrights’ effort along with technical support, marketing and administrative support for NPA. The move also will mean opening the effort to a host of actors who aren’t particularly interested in shuttling to Tacoma for a show.



“It was really a no-brainer,” Willis says. “I still have mixed feelings about it though, but it is not like we are leaving Tacoma.”



NPA still will be doing its Japanese theater program and a few other things in the City of Destiny, including Doubleshot and other special programs throughout the year.



[Rausch Auditorium, Friday, May 23, and Saturday, May 24, 7 p.m., $8-$10, University of Puget Sound, McIntyre Hall, 1500 N. Warner, Tacoma, 253.879.3419]