Is Theater Getting Shorter?

Are plays getting shorter? A report from Los Angeles suggests that more theater is clocking in at an hour and a half or less, with no intermission—about the average running time of a movie.

“Nowadays a lot more plays are being written as one-acts,” Michael Ritchie, artistic director of Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group, tells The Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper reports: “In September and October 1997, 15% of the plays reviewed [by The Los Angeles Times] ran 95 minutes or less. For the same two months in 2012, it was 37%. The inverse was true for plays running 21/2 hours or more: 33% in 1997, 16% in 2012.”