They have several they do:  One called the Playoffs where you Get 9 team owners (people to put up money) and 9 agreed playwrights and 9 agreed directors and then as many actors as you can get to come.  The opening pitch is put out at 6 p.m. on a Friday Night.   The team owner draws a playwright, the playwright draws a director and the directors take turns drawing actors until all used up.  We usually get 2-3 actors per.  They are then given a line of dialogue, a theme and an object that must be used in their 10 minute or less play.  They have 12 hours to write it and the actors have then 12 hours to produce it - it is 24 hour process and then it is produced 3 more night over 2 weekends. First Weekend is Saturday night and Sunday matinee and second weekend is Friday night and Saturday night with the winner being announced Saturday night.  Audience members get to vote for their top 3 choices. The top 3 get a prize of some sort - not expensive.  It is a great way to get new actors in your theater.

 

University of Minnesota theater department does something similar.  Depending on your theater's values - you may have to give guidelines to the writers - no language, no nudity etc.

 

They also do a Box Office Blizzard where they have people submit 3 minute plays or less and they then try to do a certain number with in 90 minutes in random order.

 

They did this year something called the Shorts and again people submit 10 minutes plays to be considered.  It is a fun evening of theater.

 

We also have a Mini Play festival where kids write 10 minute plays for a contest and then they are produced by other kids but then later the next year we have had the winners produced by adults and toured in local schools - they didn't do this this year but it has happened in the past.

 

The other theater I work for does what is called a Director's Symposium and have produced new plays or old royalty free scenes and that has worked very well as well.

 

You could do other things, this is just the way we do it.  It is a lot of fun, one of my favorite events of the year.  I usually direct as I find learning lines in less than 12 hours a little daunting.