How long should each act be?

Shorter than the performers want. For a class show, a set of a few minutes per group keeps the energy up and leaves room for everyone; the length matters less than holding to it, so that the last group on gets the same evening as the first.

How do you run a jam fairly?

Take names on a sign-up list before the show starts, close it at a stated time, and draw the groups at random in front of everyone. A visible draw settles the question of who gets on with whom, and it is quicker than negotiating.

Running a class show night

A class show night is the moment a group’s work meets an audience: friends, families, other classes. It is also, from the teacher’s side, a small production — with a running order, a timetable, calls and a host — usually run by one person who is also the director, the stage manager and the nervous performers’ coach.

The performances are the students’. The evening around them is yours, and a well-run evening makes everyone on stage look better.

Write the running order, with minutes

List every act in order with a title, who is in it and how long it is meant to run. Add up the minutes, add a few for transitions and the welcome, and compare the total with the time you have. If it does not fit, cut now, not at the interval.

Put a strong, confident act first and another one last. Put the act with the most complicated set-up just after the interval, when there is time to prepare it. Keep any two acts with the same performers apart, so nobody has to change and come straight back on.

Print it, or have it on a screen, and give a copy to whoever is helping with lights or sound, with any notes for them — blackout at the end of the third act, music in on the first line.

Call the performers, every time

In professional theatre the stage manager calls the company before the show — in the UK the half, the quarter, five minutes and beginners; in the US half hour, fifteen, five and places. A class show needs a smaller version of the same habit: the next act called to the side of the stage a few minutes before they are on. Calling them means nobody wanders off to the toilet just before their entrance and nobody is waiting in the wings for twenty minutes.

Signal the time to the act on stage

Every act will run long if nobody tells it otherwise, and the last act of the evening pays for it. Agree a time signal with each act before the show: a warning with a couple of minutes to go, and a final signal meaning find the ending now. Improvisation shows have long used a light change for the second one. The signal works only if everyone agreed to it beforehand and the performers treat it as part of the show rather than an interruption.

Run the jam with a visible draw

Many class shows end with a jam: anyone who wants to play signs up, and groups are put together on the night. Take names on a list before the show, close the list at a stated time, and draw the groups openly. A random draw in front of everybody removes any suspicion that friends were put together, and it takes a minute rather than a discussion.

Tell each group who they are with straight away, so they can find each other before they are called.

Hold the end time

An audience that was told the show finishes at nine will forgive a lot, but not half past ten. Decide in advance which act will be shortened if the night overruns, and tell that act. Then watch the clock from the first act, not the last.

Afterwards

Note which acts played and how long each actually ran, while you still remember. Next term’s running order will be better for it, and you will know which of your estimates were optimistic. Thank the performers on stage, the helpers by name, and leave the notes on the work for the next class. The show night is for having done it.