Austin Improv

Hey AIC,

A movie these days ($10 worth of entertainment) can range from 80min to 180min (the Dances With Wolves DVD expanded edition is 237min, or 4 hours). How long (ideally) should an improvised, unscripted play/show be? Also, I understand that watching bad (boring or unagreeable-&-blocky) improv for any amount of time is TOO LONG. But if it's pretty good, what's your own experience watching improv? Is there an ideal length of a show? Does it depend on the type of show? If so, what are the ideal lengths for the different types of shows?

Think about it...

...then hear my 2 cents.

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Crack! -- the whole show -- will be 80 min. We also have a 15 min intermission seperating Act I from Act II. Act I is shortform games/scenes, Act 2 is a longform narrative-musical. Act II ends up being about 40min. This seems appealing to me, but was somewhat determined by the amount of time we thought we could hold our arms in the air.

This is a very intriguing question.

I would vote 70 to 90 minutes, with a 15 minute intermission. This isn't a particularly strong opinion, my reasons are based on the following:

1.) Immersion tends to be a little stronger for films. Because you feel a little safer in THAT voyeuristic relationship with those eyes and faces that can't look back. Also movies have the benefit of closeup shots and complex structures which maximize dramatic tension. (They open questions which only get answered much later in the film.)

2.) The endurance of your performers.

3.) Most movies that go long usually waste a lot of time anyway, with visual elements or unnecessary scenes.

4.) I would argue that the $10 price (and the audience's acceptance of that price) has more to do with branding than the amount of content provided.

How long is a typical Broadway musical?

Spots wrote:How long is a typical Broadway musical?

Don't know about all shows, but "Wicked" (last Broadway musical I saw with an intermission) was approx. 2 hours 45 minutes total -- Act One is about 1 hour and 30 minutes - (online note about the show: it's a good idea to use restroom before the show starts). Act two is a little less than an hour. And there's an intermission. The most recent Broadway musical I saw was "The Drowsy Chaperone" and it was 1 hour 40 minutes - but with no intermission.

Also, both these shows were easily $50-$200 per seat, starring cream of the crop performers who were well conditioned, full-time actors, physically able to do multiple shows a week.

sfarr2 wrote: Is there an ideal length of a show?

No, and as a matter of fact that's one of my biggest tests for whether an improv show (or a CD or a book etc.) was good or not. If I didn't notice time passing - I've been watching some good improv.

For me personally, I think 40-45 minutes is a good length for a feature show. Regular slots I get antsy/bored when it goes over 25 minutes or so.

And for me, I would rather pay the same amount to watch a 40-45 minute puppet musical than an 80 minute show with split sets from the same performers.

22 minutes, 44 minutes, and 88 minutes are the standard times for television - I think they work well for Improv as well.

90 minutes with intermission. Any number of separate pieces can fill this timeframe.

A late show can be 60 minutes because it's late and we all want to get home or to the part-ay.

This is tough.

From a business aspect of producing shows, running a theatre or fest, and weighing audience tolerance I definatly see the need to package shows in a digestable time frame.

My college troupe would do an 1:45-2 hr (no intermission) show blended between short and longform, and that seemed to be just about right.

I have also done shows, or what have you, from about 12mins to 60mins.
I guess it is in the nature of all improv to know when something is over, and that is dependant on the piece.

I have always hated really rolling with an audience and enjoying a show, and knowing that the lights were pulled because of time, and no other reason.

I think it is great to have a time frame in mind, but watching the clock always seems so shitty when it comes to a performance. That is just the selfish performer part of me though.

depends on the troupe, depends on the format. i don't think there's an ideal time for EVERY improv show, but there's definitely an ideal time for any particular show. a two man flowy donut might thrive at 30-45 minutes, while an involved genre heavy longform would do better at an hour to an hour and a half.

i think the important differences to note between improv versus scripted theatre and film when dealing with run times are these: spectacle and anxiety. in something like Wicked or a Hollywood blockbuster, you're getting something very colorful and visually appealing. that doesn't always exist in a lot of improv shows where it's just people onstage talking and weaving invisible worlds in the space between the stage and the audience. now, you give them costumes...you engage the visual a bit more. you give them puppets and musical numbers, you engage it a lot and 80 minutes will just fly by. so there are ways to manipulate that. but more importantly, when you go to see something scripted, whether you find it good or bad afterwards, while you're sitting there you know you're getting a complete package so you can sit back and be taken on this ride with little worry. with improv, you don't have that feeling of "security," because it could all go off the rails and explode at any second. which is part of the excitement and part of the joy when it doesn't...but it also creates a certain level of anxiety that can be taxing on an audience's attention span. you do it for an hour, maybe two, they'll thank you for the adventure...try to push it to three and they're going to start cursing the day you were born. :p

and of course there are exceptions. you can bore an audience to tears or go completely off track in 20 or 30 minutes. and you might be able to weave an intricate improvised epic for three hours or more that gets a standing ovation at the end. but in general, i think those are good things to keep in mind...also because you can manipulate that anxiety in the same way you manipulate the spectacle.

also, it's good to note...duration doesn't equal quality, even for money spent. an average comic book issue costs about three or four bucks these days and will be, on average, a 10 minute reading experience. i can spend double that on a matinee movie ticket, get twelve times the duration but maybe not enjoy it as much. so while it's worthwhile to compare different media and forms of entertainment, it's also important to understand their differences as well.

As a disclaimer, I have ADD and I get restless even in most movies. But after about the half hour mark it gets tough for me to sit still in a theater environment. So that's the two cents from the short end of the Attention Span Spectrum.