Number of Acts & Intermissions

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > LENGTH > ACTS >

'I create places in which to think, without trying to dictate what to think.'

-- Maya Lin

For nearly all playwrights today, the maximum number of Acts in a full-length play is three. Why 3 acts instead of 2? The most compelling reasons seem to be technical:

• Short full-lengths [90 pages] usually have 2 acts.
  With an intermission between them -- or even just one very long act and no intermission as in Marsha Norman's 'NIGHT, MOTHER.

• Long full-lengths [over 110 pages] often have three acts.
  With an intermission between Act I and Act II. Very long plays [over 140 pages] usually have an intermission between each act.

• Intermissions give you the option of Time Breaks in the history of the story.
  This device often makes it easier to generate new conflict between the characters.

• In the extreme, a three-act play may be the equivalent of three one-act plays held together by shared characters, themes, and conflict. Or each act may have a distinct tone . . .

  The three acts of Alan Ayckbourn's ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR each take place on succeeding Christmas days, not unlike an American three-act play that called itself what it really was: Bernard Slade's SAME TIME NEXT YEAR.

Having a maximum of 3 acts is another one of those Rules in this business that's made to be broken. The second part of ANGELS IN AMERICA goes one better than Shakespeare: It has 5 Acts and an Epilogue. At the other end of the scale is that odd beast . . .