I wasn’t sure if we were planning on having an intermission in our play or not, but I think it would be an awesome idea. In “Weaving Individual Performance Pieces Into a Show,” it gives some great advice on how to do a successful first act ending. It explains that if we are to have a first act ending, it has to leave the audience hanging, and leave them wanting to come back. Which is obviously important, because if the play is boring by the end of the first act, no is going to be in the audience for the second.
The reading says that we should be smart about placing the ending on the first act in a good place of the show. We should have already made the conflict clear to the audience, and demonstrate how everyone feels about the said conflict. In this case, all our characters are of course trying to hunt down these ways of beating the opposing team. While brainstorming on a successful first act ending, I had a couple of intense ideas. I think someone should be in their realm, learning a skill, and then become injured. Maybe even die. It just has to be completely out of the blue, and unexpected so that it shocks the audience and leaves them wanting to know what’s going to happen, oh so desperately. So, I think we would have a successful first act ending if someone was badly injured during their sport, to the point that the audience didn’t know he would even survive. Survival should be the important question. Whether it’s survival of the person, survival of the team, or survival of the quest as a whole, just because of the injury of this one character.
That would for sure leave our audience on the edge of their seats, and we would have a very interested and glued audience on our hands.
That's a rally good idea Grace! I was also thinking about how I really want to have a pre-show in the lobby before the play. Maybe starting at seven, before the box office opens and going until 7:45ish and having cornhole boards and maybe some refreshments. I think this would really help people get into the mood of the play and spark their interest in watching the play. I think it will also cause them to be more invested. I always love it when I go to shows and the cast interacts with the audience before the show or during the intermission. It always makes me more involved in the show. For example, when I saw the Lyric Theater's production of Cinderella in London, during intermission they asked the audience to meet downstairs for the ball and they handed all the audience members scarves "to wear to the ball" and they had a live band and all the cast was downstairs dancing. They invited all of the audience to join in the dancing, and they all stayed in character while they were dancing and talking to audience members. The intermission was so much fun and after dancing with the absolutely charming Prince Charming, I definitely wanted him to succeed in his goal of finding and marrying Cinderella. So, I really like the idea of a pre-show or an intermission where the cast interacts with the audience in a communal activity like cornhole.
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