Really, 10-minute plays, you ask?

If you’re wondering to yourself if 10 minutes is enough, well, wonder no more. Downstage artistic producer Simon Mallett is quick to praise the 10-minute play. “There’s a lot you can get into 10 minutes. I’m always surprised at the emotional journey people are capable of creating,” he says. Mallett cites anthologies and festivals dedicated to 10-minute plays, as well as their frequent use in schools, as evidence of the genre’s foothold in the theatrical world.

The format is also the subject of the High Performance Rodeo’s 10-Minute Play Festival, which Downstage is heading up for the first time this year after Ground Zero Theatre passed along the torch after a decade at the helm.

“We (Downstage) had performed in the festival for the last five years and thought it was a great event. A chance to put our own little tweaks to it will be an exciting opportunity,” says Mallett.

Downstage has invited six indie theatre companies to participate in this year’s 10-Minute Play Festival, including Swallow-a-Bicycle, the Ellipsis Tree Collective, Ground Zero and, for the first time, Ghost River Theatre.

The night before the event each company is given a prop and a line of dialogue. Each group then has a mere 24 hours to come up with a short play inspired by just those two things.

“We’re encouraging companies to take more of a collaborative approach, to see what comes out of total sleep deprivation of artists. If you encourage a collaborative approach, interesting things can come out of it,” Mallett explains.

Because of the brief creation and prep time, shows tend to be fairly minimal when it comes to staging and production, though each group has a bit of tech time in the theatre before their Saturday night performance.

“It’s interesting to see how inventive some companies can get in such a limited time frame,” Mallett says.

One of the changes Mallett has in store for the festival involves the hosting of the event. In the past, Doug McKeag has kept audiences entertained between set changes and has interviewed the artists about their creations. This year, however, Mallett wants to make the host an even more integral part of the evening, by allowing him (or her) to choose the overall festival theme along with the corresponding props and lines of “inspiration,” as Mallett calls them. (Past themes have included “Bushisms” and wrestling tag lines.) Mallett also plans to rotate the host yearly, though he’s mum on who it will be this year. “I can promise you they will make the event a lot of fun,” is all Mallett will reveal.

Mallett hopes the festival, under Downstage’s leadership, will become an even greater opportunity for Calgary’s indie theatre companies to promote themselves and showcase their unique identities.

When Downstage, for example, was handed a prop and line, they turned it into a show that incorporated some “philosophical question” in order to demonstrate the kind of work the company does.

“It’s a great idea to create a 10-minute play, but also to work with some ideas that might have been ruminating around for a while that can be used as jumping-off points for other plays,” Mallett explains, adding that some companies have used their creations at the festival as seeds for longer works they’ve presented during later seasons.

“It’s an event that absolutely jams the Martha Cohen Theatre every year. For anyone who has never been before, come check it out and see some of the great changes we have in store,” Mallett says.

“Besides, if there’s a play you don’t like, it will be over in 10 minutes and it’ll be on to the next one,” he adds.