In 2020, visionary director Ivo van Hove made a dramatic announcement regarding his Broadway revival of West Side Story. He was removing the intermission, as well as the classic song “I Feel Pretty” in order to streamline the show and make the audience “feel that these people are running toward their death and there’s no escape from it.”
This sense of propelling the action forward without releasing the tension is one reason some creatives opt for the one-act format. It gained prominence during the more experimental period in the 1960s and 70s following the Golden Age where Broadway musicals began to demand more from their audiences, and this included dealing with the lack of an intermission. Man of La Mancha (1965) was the first one-act musical to win the Tony Award for Best Musical, though later Broadway revivals have added an intermission due to its expanded running time. A decade later, A Chorus Line (1975) premiered on Broadway and became one of the most enduring examples of the form. Immersing audiences in a single, uninterrupted audition as the director draws out the dancers’ personal stories. Its lack of an intermission amplifies the cumulative emotional impact.
However, audience needs and practical considerations can outweigh creative intent. Stephen Sondheim’s Follies (1971), for instance, was originally presented in one act without an intermission, a choice that later revivals abandoned because the show runs well over two hours. Likewise, Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin (1972) was originally designed to play in a single act, but the 2013 Tony-winning revival starring Patina Miller included an intermission in part to accommodate modern audience expectations and pacing.
In many ways, intermissions can seem counter-productive. Performers and crew work relentlessly through the first act to immerse the audience in the world of the show, only for the curtain to fall and the house lights to shine, breaking the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Suddenly, theatrical tension gives way to long restroom lines, phone checking, and the shuffle of people climbing over one another to get to the lobby. When the second act begins, the cast and creative team face an uphill battle to reestablish the audience’s suspension of disbelief before driving toward the show’s dramatic climax. Occasionally directors attempt to bridge this by keeping actors onstage throughout the interval as a way of preserving atmosphere. In the 2023 Broadway revival of Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, for example, Ben Platt remained onstage for the entire intermission.
But beyond creative or artistic motivations for eliminating an intermission, there are also clear practical reasons why a break is often beneficial for actors, audiences, and theater owners alike. The term “Broadway bladder” is commonly used to describe the point at which most patrons need a restroom break, usually around 75 minutes into a performance. This practical reality is why many shows structure their first act to land near that threshold. Even outside the theater, the same principle has influenced other art forms: Alfred Hitchcock famously kept his films relatively short for precisely this reason, remarking, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”
One-act shows make two-show days less taxing for performers and crews, easing turnaround times and reducing overall fatigue. Producers must also justify the price of Broadway tickets for 80–100-minute shows, with targeted advertising framing the format as a premium, cinematic experience: no filler, no distractions, just concentrated storytelling. Many marketing teams now position the one-act format as a feature rather than a limitation. And with modern audiences often favoring tighter running times, the absence of an intermission is becoming not only acceptable, but appealing. Ultimately, one-act shows have carved out a distinct place in Broadway’s ecosystem, which offers something for every kind of theatergoer.
