Intermission

An intermission, also known as an interval in British and Indian English, is a break between parts of a performance or production, such as for a theatrical play, opera, concert, or film screening.

[1] Jean-François Marmontel and Denis Diderot both viewed the intermission as a period in which the action did not in fact stop, but continued off-stage.

[4] Psychologically, intermissions allow audiences to pause their suspension of disbelief and return to reality, and are a period during which they can engage critical faculties that they have suspended during the performance itself.

Because this often results in people returning to their seats several minutes after the performance has resumed, playwrights generally take to writing "filler" scenes for the starts of acts, containing characters and dialogue that are not important to the overall story.

It gave the audience a breather, and provided the theater management an opportunity to entice patrons to its profitable concession stand.

[15] Very few Indian films have been screened without intermissions, including Dhobi Ghat,[14] Delhi Belly,[16] That Girl In Yellow Boots[17] and Trapped.