GRINDLEWELL — The Grindlewell Repertory Theater has lengthened the interval of its current production from twenty minutes to fifty-one, a figure that now exceeds the running time of the play on either side of it. "Ashfall in the Orchard," a two-act drama about a family arguing over a shed, plays for forty-four minutes in total.

The decision followed a season review by the theater's audience development officer, Miss Colleen Dray, who found that interval sales at the bar had risen for the ninth consecutive quarter while ticket sales for the plays themselves had fallen. Miss Dray told this paper that the audience had spoken, and that the theater had listened, and that the audience had mostly spoken about the gin menu.

"The interval is where our patrons are most alive," she said. "They stand in the foyer, they hold their drinks up to be photographed, they tell their friends where they are. During the acts they are very quiet. We asked ourselves what we were actually offering them."

The new format

The revised schedule lists the first act at thirty minutes, the interval at fifty-one, and the second act at fourteen. House lights now dim twice during the interval for what the program calls "a moment of reflection," which ushers have been instructed not to enforce. A second bar has opened on the staircase. Drinks ordered during the first act are now delivered during the interval rather than after it, a service the theater has named Interval Express.

Director Mr Wendell Grange-Pike, who staged the production, said he had accepted the change with enthusiasm. "An interval is theater too," he said. "It has tension, it has a crowd, it has people deciding whether to come back in. I have cut my second act to its essentials so that it no longer competes with the foyer."

Mr Grange-Pike confirmed he is developing a new work consisting entirely of interval, with a short play performed during it as a palate cleanser. He expects it to tour.

The response

Audience members interviewed at Thursday's performance were largely unaware a play was scheduled. Several said they had come for the interval on the recommendation of friends. One woman, who gave her name only as Petunia, said she had posted four photographs of the staircase and one of a distant stage.

"Would I return?" she said. "I already have."

Miss Dray said the theater would review the format again in the spring, and did not rule out further adjustment. A waiting list for bar stools has reached three hundred names.

"Ashfall in the Orchard" runs until Saturday, with two intervals on Friday.