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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.”
This program aired on November 27, 2012. The audio for this program is not available.