Favorite Scene from Your Favorite Broadway Show

[jetts7]

Posted: 9/15/11 at 8:37pm

What is your favorite scene from you favorite broadway show?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 9/15/11 at 10:06pm

The last scene of Act I of She Loves Me.

For those who don't know the show, here is the scene summarized, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Meanwhile, at the Cafe Imperiale, the head waiter is trying to maintain a "Romantic Atmosphere" as Amalia waits with her copy of Anna Karenina and rose displayed. Georg and Sipos enter and are shocked to realize that Amalia is Georg's date; however, Amalia does not know Georg is her "dear friend". Georg sits at Amalia's table and mocks her, singing a "Tango Tragique" about a friend of his who was murdered on a blind date. They argue, and Georg leaves. As the cafe closes, Amalia, still waiting, begs her "Dear Friend" not to abandon her:

The flowers, the linen, the crystal I see
Were carefully chosen for people like me.
The silver agleam and the candles aglow...your favorite songs on request.

Each colorful touch in the finest of taste,
and notice how subtly the tables are spaced.
The music is muted, the lighting is low; no wonder I feel so depressed.

Charming, romantic, the perfect cafe
Then as if it isn't bad enough a violin starts to play
Candles and wine, tables for two, but where are you dear friend?

Couples go past me, I see how they look.
So discreetly sympathetic when they see the rose and the book.
I make believe nothing is wrong, how long can I pretend?
Please make it right, don't break my heart, don't let it end, dear friend.

I make believe nothing is wrong, how long can I pretend?
Please make it right, don't break my heart, don't let it end, dear friend.

Curtain.

* * *

When all goes well (as it has been known to in both Broadway productions! 2/2 is not a bad record!), much of the audience spends the intermission completely transported to a state of enchantment.

[Rage and Love]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 10:52pm

Tough. It's a tie between the final monologue in American Idiot: "And that was that, or so it seemed. Is this the end or just the beginning? All I know is, she was right. I am an idiot. It's even on my birth certificate in so many words. This is my rage. This is my love. This is my town. This is my city. This is my life." and Hair's "Flesh Failures". Absolutely beautiful. Guess I'm a sucker for the endings.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 9/16/11 at 11:27pm

Wicked.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:58am

"Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God, it’s been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air, as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening. But I saw something that only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that’s so."

A great net of souls! I cry just thinking about it.

[LW2]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 2:27am

So so so many, but the first that comes to mind is the bench scene in Carousel. At the end of the scene, I always find that I've been holding my breath.

The entirety of the Oswald scene in Assassins.

I agree with the finale in Hair.

One More Kiss from the current Follies. The whole scene is magical, but I love that all the ghosts come out to listen to Heidi.

Amanda's "Jonquils" speech in The Glass Menagerie.

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 5:27am

The train station scene in Gypsy. 'And I can make you now' is one of the most electric, terrifying lines in musical theatre.

Also Sunday, and Man in Chair's breakdown at the end of The Drowsy Chaperone.

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:44pm

I actually love the Jud Smokehouse scene (with Poor Jud is Dead, Lonely Room) -- great great scene for 2 men.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 12:54pm

I don't know why I immediately thought this was musicals-only, but then Namo's post stuck out to me because those words are like my heart's magnet and I realized I had a much harder choice to make.

Musical: Willkommen, Cabaret, probably very closely followed if not completely tied with I Don't Care Much. Not my favorite show, but the Act 1 finale of Sunday is one of my favorite scenes of all-time regardless. I cry every time I see it, in context or out.

Play: The Ned/Felix first date scene in The Normal Heart. I would probably sooner poke my own eyeballs than be forced to choose a favorite scene from Angels in America, but as just the words themselves go, I think that final Harper monologue is my favorite thing in all of dramatic literature. When you put those scenes on stage, though, it's a little harder to choose between that, Threshold of Revelation, and More Life.

Updated On: 9/17/11 at 12:54 PM

[AC126748]

Posted: 9/17/11 at 1:00pm

In a musical, it would probably be the "I Hate The Bus" sequence from Caroline, or Change. It still stands out so vividly in my mind almost a decade later. In a play, I'd probably say Mary Tyrone's closing monologue, as performed by Vanessa Redgrave in the 2003 revival. Watching such a large, iconic woman make herself so physically small and vulnerable took my breath away.