  Hi Jerry,
Since I enjoy the dialogue that can be found in your Letters to the Editor section, I wanted to ask a question of your readers. Am I alone in mourning the death of intermission? It seems to me that the current trend is to present a show as a one-act play regardless of the running time. I agree that a one-hour play does not require a break. But having spent a decade of my life sitting behind the audience for every performance of a show, I can verify that once that sixty-minute mark is reached there is no need to look at my stopwatch to see it. I can tell by the general restlessness that starts to murmur through the house as people move around in their seats. As an audience member I have always enjoyed the break to talk with other patrons about what had happened so far and where we thought it might lead. When I was stage managing I enjoyed the opportunity to hear what the audience had to say. And as a General Manager, I miss the bar revenue that comes with having an intermission. For those of you who think operating a bar in your theatre is a cash cow, let me reassure that this is not the case. You are usually paying a bartender to be there for four hours and sell drinks for about forty minutes. Theatre bars tend to break even as a best case scenario unless you have volunteer bartenders or prices that don’t encourage drinking.
Am I missing something here? Is there some artistic merit in not giving an audience a break? Are you afraid of how many patrons will not return if given the chance to get out of their seats? How has this become the new norm?
Neil Scott
General Manager
Presentation House Theatre
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