Everything Fell Apart at Intermission

The premise is charming, but the execution is frustratingly predictable. The opening—June arriving before dawn, savoring the smell of old rope and stage lights—paints a lovely picture, yet the narrative leans on theatre-trope after theatre-trope without surprising me. June’s inventory of gaffer tape and safety pins reads like a checklist of authenticity rather than a way to deepen her character. Pacing is another problem: the excerpt luxuriates in sensory detail (I loved the steaming fritter image), then suddenly tries to snap into plot with Elliot’s paper bag and the donor luncheon. That jump makes the stakes feel flimsier than they should—are we building toward a real crisis or another predictable “gala saved by improvisation” beat? The moment where June quips, “Is that a sandwich or a contract?” feels cute but signals the story is leaning on wry dialogue instead of real conflict. There are also small logic gaps: why is a meticulous stage manager left to wrangle donors rather than the board? And who exactly set the kettle to whistle twice at noon—it's charming, but unexplained whimsy can feel like a plot hole when nothing else hinges on it. Fixes: tighten the middle so the gala’s problems escalate more dramatically, give June stakes beyond competence, and prune some of the fond domestic detail so the plot has room to surprise. A fun concept, but it needs sharper structure and fewer clichés 😉

I wanted to love this—there are so many tasty bits (the lemon-oil ropes, the kettle that whistles twice)—but the story leans a little too hard on quaintness. June is a vivid presence at first, but after the clever sandwich/contract line and a couple of neat stage-management details, the plot starts feeling predictable: mishap, improvisation, tidy resolution. The donors and their binders come off as caricatures rather than obstacles with teeth, and some coincidences (the exact timing of the rain, the magically useful paper cups) felt contrived. Stylistically it's pleasant and the dialogue is often sharp, but the pacing sags mid-gala—there were stretches where I wanted the author to either complicate the stakes or cut a scene. The finale wraps up a touch too neatly for my taste; in real theatre, things rarely land so gracefully without a bruise or two. Worth reading for the atmosphere and a few laugh-out-loud lines, but it didn’t quite earn the emotional payoff it promises.

This story charmed me from the very first smell of the empty house—what a brilliant, tactile opening. June Calder is an absolute delight: precise, quietly heroic, and funny in the way real stage managers are (i.e., morally unflappable until props betray them). The scene where she hooks her keys to the rail and counts spare gaffer tape felt so lived-in I could see the lightboard and hear the creak of the flying system. I loved the small-town touches—Mrs. Pritchard’s fritters, the kettle that whistles twice, people who clap at the wrong moments—because they root the comedy in a real community. Elliot’s sandwich-or-contract moment made me laugh out loud; it’s that micro-awkwardness the author mines so well. And the intermission catastrophe (I won’t spoil specifics) had me glued to the page: the improvised rigging, June barked-through cues, and the way she negotiates donors with the same calm she uses on stubborn curtains was perfect. The pacing is sprightly, tone warm, and the writing balances wry humor with genuine affection for theatre folk. It’s a small-town, backstage love letter that never feels saccharine. I finished smiling and immediately wanted to be in the audience—preferably with a damp pastry in hand. 😊