“In the first fifteen minutes of a play, the audience is the most malleable group in the world. Give them the slightest token that they are going to be entertained or moved and they become a receptive instrument that both playright and actors can play upon at will. Then a curious thing happens. Somehow at the end of that first fifteen minutes an invisible bell seems to ring in the theatre, and if the play has not captured them by then en masse, they become a disparate group of people who are never welded together again. One can almost feel the moment when it arrives, and the inner ear can hear that bell tolling soundlessly.”
Moss Hart, Act One
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog