“This is how I feel about the 24-Hour Theater Project: I think doing it is nuts.”

That’s Elizabeth Foley, one of the organizers of Northampton’s annual festival of instant theater, which blooms and dies again this Saturday. The event, which she describes as “theatrical mayhem” and “controlled madness,” is a no-net high-wire act in which six plays are written, rehearsed and performed in one 24-hour period.

Here’s how it works: On Friday evening, six playwrights pull numbers, corresponding to a pool of 24 actors, out of a hat. They then have 12 hours to compose a short play whose characters fit those randomly chosen performers. Bright and early on Saturday, the scripts are (hopefully) delivered and directors assigned to them. The casts spend the morning and afternoon staging them, while volunteer runners fan out to acquire props and costumes. The six mini-plays premiere at 7 p.m. with an encore at 9, and then it’s over.

Foley says what she loves most about this project is its here-and-gone nature. “It’s the butterfly of theatrical experiences. That transitory moment is what we sign on for, and to make those fleeting moments the best they can possibly be.”

The project was founded in 2002 by playwright Tanyss Martula. She was a veteran of “the old days in Northampton, when all kinds of theater was happening all over downtown, in buildings that are now condos and shops.” Her vision for a 24-hour festival, “involving so many people and so many new plays,” was in part a brief recreation of the artistic ferment that withered as downtown commercialized and rehearsal and performance spaces disappeared.

With the closing of the Center for the Arts two years ago — another casualty of Noho’s real estate squeeze — the event has moved onto the Smith College campus, and this year into its mainstage theater. That’s a mixed blessing, Martula says. While the shift to a larger venue poses “a creative challenge” for a project ideally suited to a more intimate space, it also means that would-be customers will no longer be turned away from the perennially sold-out performances.

This year’s show benefits a longtime arts anchor in the city, New Century Theatre, and the nascent Northampton Community Arts Trust, whose mission, Martula points out — “to create new affordable arts spaces in Northampton” — is in effect a response to her founding impulse.

While many of the playwrights, directors and actors are perennial project participants, this year there are several newbie performers and directors, and a couple of first-time playwrights. One of these, Stephen Wangh, was part of “the old days in Northampton,” when he led the Present Stage theater company. Recently returned to the area, he says he’s intrigued by the challenge of turning out a play to order on such short notice. He admits to being “a little scared. What if I can’t think of anything? What if I get a bunch of actors I don’t know what to do with? What if I get a director who doesn’t ‘get’ what I’ve done?”

Like Foley and Martula, Wangh says he’s attracted to the project’s pop-up nature. “Writing is usually a very drawn-out process. The chance to write something and have it done in the same day? That’s extreme. It sounds like it could be fun.”•

March 14, 7 and 9 p.m., $15-$18/advance; $17-$20/door, Theater 14, Smith College, brownpapertickets.com or (800) 838-3006.

Chris Rohmann is at StageStruck@crocker.com.