Act Break

"**Act Break**"
"Act Break"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Scene from "Act Break"
Episode no.	Season 1; Episode 8a
Directed by
Written by
Production code	9
Original air date	November 15, 1985
Guest appearances
	James Coco: Maury Winkler ; Bob Dishy: Harry/Shakespeare ; Avery Schreiber: Landlord
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Paladin of the Lost Hour"	Next →; "The Burning Man"
	List of episodes

"Act Break" is the first segment of the eighth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a playwright dying from a heart attack gives his partner a magical relic which grants the bearer one wish.

Plot[]

Maury is a playwright who is behind in his rent. Though he boasts that when his latest play is completed he will have more than enough money to pay his bills, inwardly he realizes that much as he and his longtime writing partner Harry enjoy writing together, their ongoing lack of success is primarily due to their mediocre talent. During an intense joint writing session, Harry dies of a heart attack. Harry, in his last moments, hands Maury an ancient relic and explains that each bearer of this relic gets one wish only, and he has already used his, so he needs Maury to use his wish to bring him back to life. Still fretting over his financial troubles, however, Maury instead wishes to have the greatest playwright ever as his new partner.

Maury is transported back in time to the Elizabethan era into the identity of a servant to William Shakespeare. Intuiting that history cannot be changed and therefore any work he does with Shakespeare will be uncredited, Maury regrets not using the wish to save Harry. Intrigued by Maury's relic and his offhand summary of Hamlet, a play Shakespeare has yet to write, Shakespeare takes the relic and says to Maury, "I wish for you to write with me.", unwittingly invoking its power. Maury's mind is filled with every line of every play that Shakespeare wrote. Resigning to his fate, he sits at a desk and begins to write Hamlet from memory.

External links[]

"Act Break" at IMDb

v t The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes
Season 1	"Shatterday" "A Little Peace and Quiet" "Wordplay" "Dreams for Sale" "Chameleon" "Healer" "Children's Zoo" "Kentucky Rye" "Little Boy Lost" "Wish Bank" "Nightcrawlers" "If She Dies" "Ye Gods" "Examination Day" "A Message from Charity" "Teacher's Aide" "Paladin of the Lost Hour" "Act Break" "The Burning Man" "Dealer's Choice" "Dead Woman's Shoes" "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" "The Shadow Man" "The Uncle Devil Show" "Opening Day" "The Beacon" "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" "Her Pilgrim Soul" "I of Newton" "Night of the Meek" "But Can She Type?" "The Star" "Still Life" "The Little People of Killany Woods" "The Misfortune Cookie" "Monsters!" "A Small Talent for War" "A Matter of Minutes" "The Elevator" "To See the Invisible Man" "Tooth and Consequences" "Welcome to Winfield" "Quarantine" "Gramma" "Personal Demons" "Cold Reading" "The Leprechaun-Artist" "Dead Run" "Profile in Silver" "Button, Button" "Need to Know" "Red Snow" "Take My Life...Please!" "Devil's Alphabet" "The Library" "Shadow Play" "Grace Note" "A Day in Beaumont" "The Last Defender of Camelot"
Season 2	"The Once and Future King" "A Saucer of Loneliness" "What Are Friends For?" "Aqua Vita" "The Storyteller" "Nightsong" "The After Hours" "Lost and Found" "The World Next Door" "The Toys of Caliban" "The Convict's Piano" "The Road Less Traveled" "The Card" "The Junction" "Joy Ride" "Shelter Skelter" "Private Channel" "Time and Teresa Golowitz" "Voices in the Earth" "Song of the Younger World" "The Girl I Married"
Season 3	"The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" "Extra Innings" "The Crossing" "The Hunters" "Dream Me a Life" "Memories" "The Hellgramite Method" "Our Selena Is Dying" "The Call" "The Trance" "Acts of Terror" "20/20 Vision" "There Was an Old Woman" "The Trunk" "Appointment on Route 17" "The Cold Equations" "Stranger in Possum Meadows" "Street of Shadows" "Something in the Walls" "A Game of Pool" "Room 2426" "The Mind of Simon Foster" "The Wall" "Cat and Mouse" "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" "Many, Many Monkeys" "Love Is Blind" "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" "Special Service" "Father and Son Game"