Editing Intermission (section)

== Plays ==
The term "Broadway Bladder" names "the alleged need of a [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] audience to urinate every 75 minutes".{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=3}} Broadway Bladder, and other considerations (such as how much revenue a theater would lose at its bar if there were no intermissions), govern the placement of intermissions within performances, and their existence in performances, such as plays, that were not written/created with intermissions in mind.{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=3}}

=== William Shakespeare ===
The plays of [[William Shakespeare]] were originally intended for theater performance without intermissions.  The placement of intermissions within those plays in modern performances is thus a matter for the play's director.{{sfn|Dessen|2002|p=95}}  Reviewer Peter Holland analyzed the placement of intermissions in 1997:
* Of ''[[The Winter's Tale]]'' he noted that there was "as natural a break as anyone could wish for" before the speech of Time as Chorus, and that he had never seen a production that placed an intermission other than at that point.{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=3}}
* [[Trevor Nunn]]'s production of ''[[Measure for Measure]]'' in 1991 is given as an example of intermissions placed in the middle of a scene.  It stopped halfway through act 3 scene 1, moving some of the lines from later in the scene to before the intermission.{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=3}}
* Performances of ''[[King Lear]]'', he observed, often place the intermission "disproportionately late", after the blinding of Gloucester.{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=3}}
* The 1991 RSC production of ''[[Julius Caesar (play)|Julius Caesar]]'' directed by [[Stephen Pimlott]] is pointed out as noteworthy for its extraordinary intermission length. Pimlott had placed the intermission after act 4 scene 1, after the action leaves Rome. This allowed the striking of the scenery. But it took sometimes as much as forty minutes for stage crew to remove the scenery, which comprised a "massive set of columns and a doorway" designed by [[Tobias Hoheisel]], a period that was longer than the remaining length of the performance, some thirty-five minutes.{{sfn|Holland|1997|p=4}}

Many modern productions of Shakespeare plays have thus eschewed the introduction of an intermission, choosing instead to perform them straight through, as originally intended.{{sfn|Dessen|2002|p=95}}

=== Kabuki ===
The intermissions in [[Kabuki]] theater can last up to an hour.  Because this often results in people returning to their seats several minutes after the performance has resumed, playwrights generally take to writing "filler" scenes for the starts of acts, containing characters and dialogue that are not important to the overall story.{{sfn|Brandon|1992|p=29}}

=== Noh ===
In the [[Noh]] theatrical tradition, interludes called nakairi are staged between the first and second halves of a performance, during which time [[kyōgen]] actors sum up the plot or otherwise further the action through performances known as aikyōgen. These interludes also give the main actors a chance to change costumes and rest.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nakairi (中入り) |url=https://db2.the-noh.com/edic/2009/04/nakairi.html |website=the-noh.com |access-date=8 December 2020 |date=14 April 2009 |archive-date=June 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210621102550/https://db2.the-noh.com/edic/2009/04/nakairi.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ai-kyōgen |url=http://noh.stanford.edu/catalog-of-shodan/ai-kyogen/ |website=noh.standford.edu |access-date=8 December 2020 |archive-date=June 23, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210623203442/http://noh.stanford.edu/catalog-of-shodan/ai-kyogen/ |url-status=live }}</ref>