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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Theater / Breaking News Balagan Theater (Wisely) Abandons the Idea of a Two-Hour Intermission

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 4:15 PM

In this week's review of Balagan Theater's Death, Sex, Paul Constant notes that its two-hour intermission isn't such a good idea:

Though the program promises you "nine 10-minute comedies," you should be warned that on Friday and Saturday nights, Balagan Theatre splits the nine short plays of Death, Sex into two programs—the first five show at 8 p.m., the rest at 11 p.m. The audience is informed before the eight o'clock show that if they bring their programs back after a nearly two-hour "intermission," they can get into the other four plays for free. This is a remarkable (many would say stupid) amount of trust to put into an audience.

Last Saturday, I was the only person in the stands for the late show...

A few minutes ago, this email from Balagan arrived at Stranger HQ:

Just wanted to give you the heads-up re: Death, Sex: For April 12-14, we cancelled the 11pm shows and people attending the 8pm shows will see all nine comedies. Thanks for reviewing the show!

Paul liked a few of the short plays and loathed some others, but favored the ones by Wayne Rawley and Kelleen Conway Blanchard, two of my favorite Seattle playwrights.

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almost any intermission is too much intermission for me, thankzzz. get it over with, for the love of pete!

Posted by Adrian Ryan on April 11, 2012 at 5:40 PM

I love intermissions and actually write with them in mind. I feel like they are a unique component of theatre and we abandon them at our peril, both aesthetically and pragmatically (how else you gonna maximize concession sales?)

But a two-hour intermission is loony. So, Balagan fixed it. Good on 'em!

Posted by Mullin