Twenty-nine-and-a-half hours and counting …

Somewhere between a full-length play and an improv performance is the genre known as “speed theater.” OK, so that’s a fabricated genre.

But the wit, speed, craftsmanship and dedication that goes into producing nine plays in 29-and-a-half hours deserves a genre all its own, right? It really is like theater on speed—or at least a few Red Bulls. The ninth annual 29½ Hour Playwriting Festival, presented by City Theatre at Sacramento City College, will begin midday Saturday, September 13. Nine selected playwrights will receive either an image or a phrase and the number and gender of characters that must be included in their play. Then it’s off to playwright solitude for eight hours as they take that chaos and turn it into a theater masterpiece—or simply something entertaining. That evening they hand the completed scripts to directors who will begin rehearsing the play with actors the following morning. The performances will begin Sunday, September 14, at 8 p.m. in the Art Court Theatre at Sacramento City College. While the audience doesn’t get to experience the manic writing and rehearsing, it will undoubtedly be entertained by plays that didn’t exist a mere 1,770 minutes earlier.