An Argument For the 90-Minute Musical
Written by TMS Director of Creative Development & Mentor, Eric Webb
Hello, TheaterMakers!
I’m here to make the purists cry, the producers smile, and (hopefully) the writers think.
The 90-Minute, No Intermission Musical… is a good thing.
And no, this is not just me trying to justify the fact that we’re experimenting with the idea of turning my Bonhoeffer musical, RISE (with composer Scott Wilkinson), into one. I’ve just been thinking about it a lot…
And let’s get one piece of pop culture psychology thrown out the window right off the bat: no, we are not “dumbing down” theater for the sake of shrinking attention spans….
Yes, audiences have become more accustomed to short-form entertainment. Some may prefer it. But people are still entirely capable of sitting their butts down for 2, 2 and a half, sometimes even 3 hours WITH NO BREAK. The latest Avatar movie came out last December (I didn’t see it, but LOTS of other folks did…). It is currently the 16th highest grossing film in HISTORY. Its running time? 3 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES. The first two Avatars currently sit at #1 and #3 in grosses, with running times of 2:41 and 3:12 respectively.
And that’s with no intermission.
People can pay attention when they want to.
So no, this is not about dumbing down, this is actually about getting smart. Being precise, being concise, and remembering that Aristotle may have been onto something all those years ago when he talked about the limitation of time in drama.
Writing a 90-minute production FORCES you to be laser focused and trim all of that fat that’s been bloating up your script. Think about making a sauce… the longer you boil it, the smaller the volume. What happens to that sauce? The flavors explode. The sweets are sweeter, the sours more sour… The same is true in drama. Concentrate that time and the highs get higher, the lows get lower and you don’t give an audience a chance to catch their breath.
Cause you know what the death knell is for any story?
Letting them leave the world. Giving your audience a chance to think about the fact that they’re being told a story. To drop their suspension of disbelief and start to think about the babysitter they need to relieve or the reservation they need to make for dinner…
And that was what we realized was happening with RISE. We had a great Act break, but we realized we were letting people off the ride when we didn’t need to. We want the show to be breathless, chaotic… to let the audience feel the same kind of pressure to act without time for thoughtful pondering that our characters are operating under. And relinquishing the Act break helps us maintain that vice grip on the characters AND the audience.
Because, on a practical level, think about what the two-act structure does to us, especially in musicals: we’ve been forced to build the concept of a “curtain warmer,” a song literally constructed to be disposable in case an audience member isn’t back in their seat yet so they won’t miss anything.
Does that sound exciting to you? Propulsive? NECESSARY?
Do you want to spend an entire scene and song just trying to get the audience back into the mindset you spent so much energy building in the first half of the show?
If you don’t have to do it, why do it? Just because history says that musicals have two Acts? Because somebody somewhere said a show isn’t “real” if it’s 90 minutes?
This is not to say that all shows need to be 90 minutes. Don’t feel pressured to do it just because someone somewhere told you your show will be “more producible.” Some shows NEED more room. Could you imagine Les Mis in 90 minutes? Hmmm… actually…. (I kid…).
At the end of the day, take the time you need to tell the story you want to tell. Whether that’s 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours, or half a day. Just make sure there’s no fluff. Nothing extraneous.
But don’t be afraid of the 90-Minute No Intermission Musical.
