“I’m really excited about it,” said Margaret Thomas Kelso, HSU professor in the Theatre, Film and Dance department and coordinator of the festival, who began it in 1998. “The whole festival grew out of an end-of-the-class presentation in the advanced playwriting course. It was very informal, with no sets or costumes. But it was successful, and each year we kept adding to it, and it’s grown and grown to the point where it is a major part of the season. It’s an event people look forward to.”

This year’s festival features eight new ten-minute plays running the gamut from intense drama (“Beneath the Gas,” set in a Nazi death camp, and “Daughters,” about the interrogation of a suspected terrorist) to high comedy (“Condition Blue,” in which a criminal coddles a depressed detective) and meaningful fantasy (“Mail Room Madness,” in which a contemporary Dilbert converses with his letter opener, and “To Womb It May Concern,” a dialogue between twins on the pros and cons of being born.)