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Our Acts Are Different

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Our Acts Are Different
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Most modern theatrical pieces are written in two acts. There is one set point (sometimes at a Cliffhanger) at which the audience takes an Intermission, and when they come back, the action finishes.
This, however, is pretty much solely a modern convention; older plays generally had three or five acts (with some sort of climax before each intermission, in order to make audiences excited to return). Even after the two-act structure became more popular (around the Victorian period), three- and five-act plays were not uncommon, and continue to be written to this day.
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Likewise, there is also a tradition of shorter, one-act plays, in part dating from a time where a night at the theatre was meant to be an entire night at the theatre, so what would now be considered a full-length (or even rather long) play was often bookended with a couple shorter one-act plays, which the audience could skip if they wanted to arrive late or go home early.
Modern performances may change things about a bit, ignoring some of the gaps between acts, or finding a new point for an intermission nearer the half-way point, though how well these redivisions work depends on the director and the play in question. Also, sometimes, the word "Act" is used to replace the word "Scene" when a play has very few scenes, or each scene is extensive. Sometimes more than one of the above apply. It differs wildly.
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Oh, yes, and some genres of theatre keep to older conventions: Operas generally have between three and five acts, though a few use the two-act structure. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas are probably the most important of these, given they're still very widely performed, and since their major role in the birth of the musical is probably the main reason musicals follow the two-act convention.
See also: Act Break, Two-Act Structure
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Candide
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HanselAndGretel
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MadamaButterfly
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Our Acts Are Different
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Native Son was adapted into a play in ten scenes with no designated intermission, even though the original novel has a three-part division.
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The Last Five Years
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Our Acts Are Different
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The three-act Our Town usually follows the same format as Earnest, as does Thorton Wilder's other famous work The Skin of Our Teeth. However, The Matchmaker (which is based on an older play) is in four acts, and its much better-known adaptation, Hello, Dolly!, is in two.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Trial by Jury, a one-act Gilbert and Sullivan opera, originally written to be performed before Offenbach's La Perichole, though, in the end, it proved more popular. Today, it is often performed before one of their shorter two-act pieces (it was first revived at the Savoy in 1884 with a revised version of The Sorcerer), or alongside one or more of the one-act operas Sullivan wrote with other librettists, Cox and Box and The Zoo.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is written in three acts: traveling to Elsinore (though they arrive just before the end of the act), Elsinore itself (where most of the direct overlap with Hamlet lies), and the boat to England.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Street Scene is a typical three-act drama with no scene changes, adapted into a two-act opera by striking the second intermission.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Lady Windermere's Fan is in four acts, with an intermission usually placed between Acts 2 and 3.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and The Three Sisters, both of which usually break after Act 2.
Chehov's major plays were all written in four acts of continuous action, with scene changes at the intermissions.
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Our Acts Are Different
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The Drowsy Chaperone is meant to be performed without an intermission, despite the Show Within a Show that it is about being a two-act musical. However, some productions do choose to add an intermission anyway, usually after the song "Toledo Surprise".
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Our Acts Are Different
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Follies was originally presented in one act because an intermission would probably make an awkward interruption in the action. The awkward interruption (after "Too Many Mornings") is now usual.
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Edmond
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A New Brain
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Our Acts Are Different
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Some plays do have a more obvious five-act structure. For instance, in Henry V, each act is preceded by narration from the Chorus. It's also often suggested that plays written for the indoor Blackfriars theater, which Shakespeare's company used as a winter playhouse starting in 1608 and which catered to a more upscale audience than the Globe, had music at the act breaks.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Many stage versions of Cinderella are in three acts, with the second act taking place at the ball (which is also true of Die Fledermaus).
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1776
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Our Acts Are Different
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Both Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency are in three acts.
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Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Pippin was originally written in one act, but most regional productions insert an intermission. The Broadway revival also inserted one, with the Leading Player noting that attention spans aren't what they used to be. This change makes sense, given the second act quickly abandons and retcons the main plot of act 1.
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Our Acts Are Different
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Many Kaufman and Hart plays, including You Can't Take It with You and Once in a Lifetime.
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The Most Happy Fella was one of the few three-act musicals produced in the 1950s.
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Porgy and Bess is in three acts, though some productions have reduced it to two. The source play Porgy was in four acts, the middle two of which were simply put together.
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Anyone Can Whistle is a three-act musical, which doesn't make its action much more coherent.
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Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night is four acts.
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"Master Harold"... and the Boys
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Our Acts Are Different
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A Streetcar Named Desire has eleven scenes with no act breaks in the script. However, the original production featured two intermissions.
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Our Acts Are Different
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The modern musical version of Peter Pan.
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Our Acts Are Different
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The play of The Odd Couple is written in three acts, mainly to facilitate a massive set change when Felix joins Oscar's household and cleans the place up.
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller is in four acts. While it normally has an intermission after Act II, there is an additional (sometimes cut) scene, "Act 2, Scene 2", much shorter in length and only including Proctor and Abigail. When included, it often follows the intermission.
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J.B. by Archibald MacLeish was written to be performed without interruption, or with optional breaks after the Godmask/Satanmask exchanges that end scenes 2 and 7.
 Our Acts Are Different / int_a7da6de1
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Our Acts Are Different
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"Perestroika", the second part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, is in five acts. It is worth noting that, uncut, "Perestroika" is even longer than "Millenium Approaches", but it is virtually always cut down slightly, and Kushner wrote notes in the published script as to what could reasonably be cut.
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Our Acts Are Different
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A View from the Bridge premiered in 1955 as a one-act drama, with many passages in verse. The definitive 1956 revision expanded the play slightly and added an intermission.
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The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ...usually. Many productions add an intermission before "Chip's Lament."
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Our Acts Are Different
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The musical adaptation of Giant by Michael John LaChiusa and Sybille Pearson is one of very few musicals to be in three acts.
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Man of La Mancha
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Our Acts Are Different
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Most of Richard Wagner's operas are in three acts, though the acts tend to run rather long at times. Götterdämmerung also has a rather lengthy prologue which segues into the first act without intermission.
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The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde's most famous play, is in three acts (though it was originally in four), with breaks usually taken between each.
The three-act Our Town usually follows the same format as Earnest, as does Thorton Wilder's other famous work The Skin of Our Teeth. However, The Matchmaker (which is based on an older play) is in four acts, and its much better-known adaptation, Hello, Dolly!, is in two.
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A Chorus Line
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Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude is in nine acts, and runs twice as long as most plays.
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Assassins by Stephen Sondheim has no intermission, as it has no real plot.
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