Solo......................... 3   "

    Dialogue
       Comedy and Specialties.... 5 "

Ensemble number.............. 5   "

    Dialogue
       Specialties, Comedy. 
       Plot climax—­perhaps
       a “big” love scene,
       leading into.............. 7 "

Duet......................... 4   "

Dialogue
Plot Solution—­the
final arrangement
of characters............. 2 "

Closing ensemble............. 3   "
-------
35   "

Of course this imaginary schedule is not the only schedule that can be used; also bear firmly in mind that you may make any arrangement of your elements that you desire, within the musical comedy form.  Let me repeat what I am never tired of saying, that a rigid adherence to any existing form of vaudeville act is as likely to be disastrous as a too wild desire to be original.  Be as unconventional as you can be within the necessary conventional limits.  This is the way to success.

You have your big idea, and you have the safe, conventional ensemble opening, or a semi-ensemble novelty opening.  Also you have a solo number for the tenor or the ingenue, with the chorus working behind them.  Finally you have your ensemble ending.  Now, within these boundaries, arrange your solo and duet—­or dispense with them, as you feel best fits your plot and your comedy.  Develop your story by comedy situations—­don’t depend upon lines.  Place your big scene in the last big dialogue space—­the seven minutes of the foregoing schedule—­and then bring your act to an end with a great big musical finish.

2.  Timing the Costume Changes

Although the schedule given allows plenty of time for costume changes, you must not consider your schedule as a ready-made formula.  Read it and learn the lesson it points out—­then cast it aside.  Test every minute of your act by the test of time.  Be especially careful to give your chorus and your principal characters time to make costume changes.

In gauging the minutes these changes will take, time yourself in making actual changes of clothing.  Remember that you must allow one minute to get to the dressing room and return to the stage.  But do not make the mistake of supposing that the first test you make in changing your own clothes will be the actual time it will take experienced dressers to change.  You yourself can cut down your time record by practice—­and your clothes are not equipped with time-saving fasteners.  Furthermore, it often happens that the most complicated dress is worn in the first scene and a very quick change is prepared for by under-dressing—­that is, wearing some of the garments of the next change under the pretentious over-garments of the preceding scene.  These are merely stripped off and the person is ready dressed to go back on the stage in half a minute.

But precise exactness in costume changes need not worry you very much.  If you have been reasonably exact, the producer—­upon whom the costume changes and the costumes themselves depend—­will add a minute of dialogue here or take away a minute there, to make the act run as it should.