A lot can happen in the span of 10 minutes — the approximate length of each of the seven plays making up “Cascades 10.”

The short new plays written by local and regional playwrights are the makings of Cascades Theatrical Company’s second annual festival and first Black Box production of the young season. The festival returns to CTC’s Cascades Theatre on Oct. 4-7. (Pro tip: Last year’s festival packed the house during its short run, so consider getting your tickets in advance or queuing up early.)

“Cascades 10” producer Marla Manning said audiences can expect the collection of plays to be a healthy mix of comedy and drama, with a science-fiction mystery thrown in for more color.

Overall, “they’re sweet, and they also have something to say, which is what I liked about all of them,” she said.

The short-form of storytelling challenges playwrights to write concisely. The plays also tend toward small casts, as the title of Medford playwright Mark Saunders’ “Two People” suggests.

The play’s director, Debbie Levin, explains the play is about a husband (played by Thomas Tsuneta) and a wife (Kathryn Galan) in the afterlife.

“It’s a very humorous and warm piece about two people that were married in life and they’re reunited in heaven — and they’re not sure that that’s the best thing going,” she said, laughing. “It’s a good premise. They’re kind of in a limbo state, and all that they’re served is ham. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, all they get is ham. But they find a way around it, and it’s a very sweet piece.”

Levin is new to Central Oregon — she moved here from outside of New York City in late June — but not to the director’s chair. “Two People” was her first choice of a show to direct after she threw her hat in the ring.

“I’m feeling very privileged to be directing again,” she said. “I have a very long history of directing in community theater back in the New York-Connecticut area, and I was anxious to get established here, so I’m very thrilled to be doing this with a great group of people, it seems.”

Playwright John C. Davenport is the Seattle-based scribe behind that sci-fi mystery, “Life-Changing Email.” A journalist with a 30-year career in newspapers, Davenport has creative outlets in writing plays and performing stand-up comedy. His first two full-length plays were produced in Dallas, where he worked for the Morning News, about 20 years ago.

In 2002, he moved to Seattle, where, Davenport said, he tried to get back into stand-up.

“But I was working nights at the Times, so the only nights I could go to the comedy club was, like, on open mic night on Monday, where you wait two hours to do three minutes,” he said. “I figured, ‘This isn’t gonna work,’ so I got back into writing plays.”

His “Cascades 10” submission is also about a couple dealing with a problem, albeit one far different than heavy repetition of heavenly swine.

“It’s about a couple who discover that their email has been hacked, and it’s just the extent to which they are hacked,” he said. “I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s not just, ‘Oh, gee, I have to change my password.’”

Most of what he writes aspires to comedy, Davenport said, and that’s true of “Life-Changing Email” as well.

Davenport, if he’s not working his day — er, night? — job, may be in the Cascades Theatre audience during one of the “Cascades 10” performances.

“I’m going to try to come for the festival,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of productions, especially one-act productions, all over the place, but I rarely get to see them in person.”