Back for a second year, Seoul Players’ 10-Minute Play Festival and Competition returns this weekend, this time with plays from across the world.

Seeking to maximize submissions, the troupe advertised on several international theater websites. The response was more than expected, with nearly 200 submissions having to be whittled down to 14 finalists.

Adel said that after an initial screening selected the top 60 plays, the panel spent 10 hours reading through each one.

“This year it was a really tough decision. There were a lot of plays that could have gone in, that were good enough, but we wanted to try and find a nice balance so that people were getting a good cross-section of different styles of writing, and different types of theater,” she said.

“That played into our initial decision much more than it even could have last year. Last year we had to go with what were the absolute best, but this year we were spoilt for choice in the end.”

The final 14 will be performed by 12 directors and 40 actors.

“There were a couple plays that were in almost everybody’s cap because there’s some comedy plays that are really funny and comedy, when it’s really well written, it kind of directs itself.”

Adel said that comedy would feature heavily, but it would be in different genres, alongside other types of theater

“There’s some farcical comedy, there’s definite political satirical comedy, there’s a show that is non-verbal, there’s a bit of dialogue but it’s mostly physical theater,” she said.

“There’s more experimental theater in which the audience is going to be involved in a way that they won’t realize until about 5 minutes in.

“I’m really excited about the quality of the scripts that we received and just how many talented people we have involved.”

Adel hopes the quality and balance of the plays on offer will help build on the success of last year’s event.

“Last year the audience really had a good time,” she said. “We had a play about zombies in love and it ended up with ketchup being flung all over the stage so it was definitely a fun night.”

But Adel said audience members wouldn’t need to bring a raincoat.

“I don’t think there’s any plays involving zombies this year so you may be safe,” she said. “Flying popcorn might be the extent of the danger.”

The opening rounds on Friday and Saturday will both feature seven plays, with an audience vote deciding which three plays from each go through to the final on Sept. 22, where the audience will again vote for the winner.

Shows start at 8 p.m. at Club Moon Night in Itaewon. Tickets are 15,000 won. For more information, email seoulplayers@gmail.com or visit www.seoulplayers.com.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)