Four sleepy playwrights and a group of local actors willing to challenge themselves prepared for a unique theatrical exercise on Saturday.

The Hobnob Theatre Company hosted the innovative 24-Hour Play Project, in which a stage production is conceived, cast, written, rehearsed and produced in 24 hours.

Justin Anderson, who oversaw the project, said Saturday morning the project began at 7:30 p.m. Friday night, Aug. 23, when four writers began stabbing balloons that contained the names of 14 actors from Hobnob Theatre.

The actors whose names were in the balloons were assigned to the writer who popped the balloons.

Everyone left at 9 p.m., but the four writers had until 8 a.m. Saturday to write a 10-minute play on any subject in their imagination.

Each play would use the actors the writer had received randomly through the balloon-popping exercise, and the play had to contain the line “I’m gonna cut this thing off real soon” and have a spatula among the props.

The writers had to submit their plays, and Anderson printed the plays out and copied them to hand out to the actors at 10 a.m. Saturday at Hobnob Theatre studio space on Main Street.

The actors munched on doughnuts and sipped coffee as they read through the plays for the first time.

They then split up to rehearse until 5 p.m. at four venues: Hobnob Theatre, the Butler County Chamber of Commerce office, Your Mother’s Basement, and the second floor of Mystique Moon. All are on Main Street in Butler.

“The actors have 8 to 10 hours to memorize their lines, so that can cause an issue if someone forgets a line,” Anderson said.

But he said the 14 actors are seasoned in their craft.

“I don’t think we have a lack of trust that they’ll memorize their lines,” Anderson said.

Ready or not, the plays were staged before an audience at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the theater space.

“The actors certainly have their work cut out for them,” Anderson said as they gathered at the theater Saturday morning. “We’re super excited about it.”

The writers were Casey Bowser, Deanna Sparrow, Jack Senske and Michael Dittman.

“Anyone can bring a show that’s been done before, but we love doing different things,” said Anderson. “This is a first for everyone involved.”

Bowser wrote a play entitled “Comicon Man,” in which a mother and daughter attend a Comicon to meet the daughter’s hero.

“It turns out to be a bit more disappointing than she planned,” he said.

He spent Friday night trying to think of different relationship dynamics while trying to conceive a play idea.

“I was just thinking maybe the dynamic of one person who’s a hero, but not a blood relative, might be interesting,” Bowser said. “The male is a star whose star has faded and now he’s doing Comicons and he’s a little bitter about it.”

He was excited to see how “Comicon Man” would go off on the stage, but he also appreciated seeing actors who were new to Hobnob Theatre participating in the experimental project.

“It’s so great to see new faces, and it’s on us to make those people feel welcome,” Bowser said.

The actress playing the mother in “Comicon Man” was none other than Bowser’s wife, Heidi Nicholls-Bowser.

“He can’t get away from me,” Nicholls-Bowser said. “He just keeps choosing me over and over.”

She said her husband finished writing his play at around 3 a.m.

“He wrote it on our porch so he would be cold and awake,” she said.

She said the potential for missing a line during the play doesn’t really cause her any stress.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Nicholls-Bowser said. “I can fake it if I have to.”

She appreciated the 24-hour project because of its innovation, which she and her husband are interested in.

“It’s like flying without a net,” she said.

Sparrow’s play, “R.I.P.,” is about two people on a graveyard tour with a mysterious tour guide.

“They both get a little more than they bargained for,” Sparrow said.

She admitted to running on fumes Saturday morning as she prepared to oversee her play’s rehearsal.

“I went to bed at 5 a.m., so I got about three hours sleep,” Sparrow said.

She also appreciated the new and unique method of putting on a play.

“There will be glitches, but I think it’s going to be awesome,” Sparrow said.

Actor Stefan Lingenfelter furtively scanned his lines in “How It Works,” which was penned by Dittman.

“I’ve done a lot of theater, but this is the first time I’ve done this,” he said. “It’s just crazy and scary, but it looks like a lot of fun.”

Lingenfelter was slated to play Calvin, who is leading an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“He seems to be a very by-the-book facilitator of this meeting, and he was an addict himself,” he said of his character. “He seems very wise.”

Like all involved in Hobnob Theatre’s 24-hour Play Project, Lingenfelter is thrilled that Ken and Elizabeth Smith’s new theatrical company is providing challenges for actors and quality theater for the public.

“I’ve worked with Ken and Liz since the start,” Lingenfelter said. “They are all about the community and bringing arts to Butler.”

Sparrow agreed.

“I love Hobnob. It’s really my artistic home,” she said. “Ken and Liz are such incredible, creative people, and they never stop.”

More information on Hobnob Theatre Company and its upcoming events is available at hobnobtheatre.com.