The six scripts were written Friday night, handed over to actors and directors Saturday morning and unveiled for an enthusiastic audience at the San Pedro Playhouse Saturday night.

     Each piece offered a strong, clear vision, well-executed by the actors. They were aided in a few spots by Rick Malone's sound effects.

     The evening was presented by the San Antonio Theatre Coalition, and hosted with goofball charm by Joe Libby.

     First up was playwright Ric Slocum's hard-edged "A San Antonio Rupture," in which a group of barely literate junkies (Tony Campbell, Joel Crabtree, Gabriel Ruiz and Nikki Young) celebrate finding crystal meth in a purse one of them stole from a church parking lot. The piece takes a turn when their leader winds up overdosing, and another prays over his body. The play, directed by Kathleen Lovejoy, got things off to a bracing start.

     "Packing Memories," written by Allison Orr Block and directed by Sharon Renee Shepherd, was funny and moving. In it, an older woman (Varda Ratner) rebels as a two-man crew (entertaining turns from Matthew Byron Cassi and Edward Gallardo III) pack up her home; her grown daughter (Lisa Renee Hart) has decided she can't live on her own anymore. The mother has a flashback to the daughter's birth that is powerful for both women.

     "In My Hands, The Stars, The Stars" — written by Guadalupe Flores and directed by Lou Garza — took a clear-eyed look into the difficult backyard reunion of a woman's foster children (Jade Esteban Estrada, Martha Prentiss, Alicia Tafoya, Julie Vaquera and Express-News Managing Editor Brett Thacker) after her death. Estrada was especially strong as the mentally disabled son.

     "The Birthday Surprise," written with typically twisted wit by Antoinette Winstead and directed with a great sense of tone by Art Peden, had a pair of women (Mellissa Marlowe and Mary Robinson) trying to bring a third out of a funk with a gift: A shirtless young man (J.T. Urick) they've bound and gagged just for her. Winstead teases out information about these women slowly, giving the pay-off — they're cannibals — a big impact.

     "Where in Bexar is Agapito?" — a screwy, entertaining piece written by GRITO (husband-and-wife team Grisel Acosta and Vincent Toro) and directed by Chadd Green — had the feel of a B-movie. It opened with a woman (the marvelous Anna Gangai) in a tizzy over the loss of a sacred artifact; it turns out the artifact was a hollow clown head swiped by a pair of tourists (David Omar Davila and Heather Kelley).

     The evening ended with "Inside the Loop," a bittersweet piece written by James Venhaus and directed by Catherine Babbitt. It traced a relationship backward, from its heartbroken finale to its beginning. It featured strong performances from Gregory Hinojosa and Sara Larson as the couple and W. Chris Champlin as the new man in her life.