Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

[jvoom]

I've been looking through the playbills I've collected over the years and got to thinking ... what plot twist/special effect etc. you have witnessed in a theatre has solicited the loudest gasp?

Spoilers ahead!

I think the biggest I've encountered was during the Donmar Warehouse production of "Appropiate" when 

 

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... in the middle of the argument scene, Ainsley comes running down the stairs in the KKK hood. 

 

[WldKingdomHM]

End of Act 1 -Proof

[52889j]

The very last second of Paradise Blue at Signature Theatre.

[broadway86]

Quinn's fatal decision near the end of The Ferryman. It was amazing.

[Roscoe]

In Martin McDonagh's THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE --

 

 

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when Wee Thomas appears.

One of the biggest gasps and hardest laughs I've ever heard from an audience.

[Luminaire2]

Not seen personally, but any slime tutorials I’ve watched of Ragtime, during the finale prologue, when Mother has her moment. Everyone always gasps or sobs.

paciencia y fe when she reveals she won. Always a bit of a gasp goes through the audience.

Come From Away when he says “and that’s how we started speaking the same language” the audience all around me were shook.

[Fordham2015]

The end of Blackbird, when 

 

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Ray's daughter appears

 

[Fordham2015]

The end of Blackbird, when 

 

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Ray's daughter appears

 

[Wick3]

GRAND HORIZONS --- end of Act 1.

[Mike Barrett]

broadway86 said: "Quinn's fatal decision near the end of The Ferryman. It was amazing."

Yep, this was it for me. Loudest gaps could’ve been from me however lol. I nearly got out of me seat in pure shock. 

[uncageg]

WldKingdomHM said: "End of Act 1 -Proof"

 

Same here.

 

[CapnHook]

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
end of Act Two
"You don't get it, do you? I'M RUNNING THINGS NOWWWWWW!!!" (blackout)
Gasps, cheers, applause, exhaling, intermission.

[TotallyEffed]

August: Osage County. By a landslide.

[CT2NYC]

2 times during Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, when...

 

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Dolores Umbridge is revealed at the end of Part I, and when Snape tells Scorpius that Cedric Diggory killed Neville Longbottom, in Part II.

 

[LarryD2]

delete

 

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The play was about a dying woman in the 1920s and her husband. Throughout the play, her husband took an interest in a younger man who began working for him, and it was strongly implied that they were lovers. In the final moments, the dying woman (played by Jessica Hecht) said something like: "Are you going to live here with your son after I'm gone?" The boy was the husband's son from an affair with his former secretary, not his lover. The aged LCT audience erupted in shrieks. It was like being at a slasher movie.

 

[carolinaguy]

For me, the loudest gasps were during the original production of Miss Saigon. I saw it very shortly after it opened in NY, and Kim's final act produced a collective gasp that nearly rattled the chandeliers.

[KathyNYC2]

A long time ago in a production of Wait Until Dark. The female lead is blind and she is being attacked by the "bad guy" in her apartment and she is trying to hide from him. She has turned off the lights to give herself an advantage so everything is very dark on stage, the audience is squinting trying to see what's going on.......but then the attacker opens another door where both he and the light crash back into the scene.

The gasp was so loud from the entire audience...people were embarrassed enough to start giggling a bit before everything was back to order. I don't think I have ever heard a gasp again quite like that one.

[DiscoCrows]

When Orpheus turns around to look at Eurydice, end of Hadestown. 

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

 

DiscoCrows said (relating to Hadestown):

 

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When Orpheus turns around to look at Eurydice, end of Hadestown. 

I'm always surprised at how many people aren't familiar with the source material of the shows they see. I recall, at a talk at the Strand by David Malloy and Rachel Chavkin relating to the Great Comet (book release of the big red book?), a gasp when David mentioned that

 

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later in the novel, Pierre and Natasha get married. 

Perhaps I can see this for a very long novel like W&P before you see it, but if you're so invested in the show that you go to a book signing/talk, maybe read the book?

 

I agree about the Ferryman, btw. Big shock.

[Piparoo]

Not Broadway but the Cromer directed production of Our Town at the Barrow Street Theatre - when the set changed from nothing to hyper naturalism (you could smell breakfast being made) it blew my socks off.

Also, OBC Sweeney Todd...

 

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When Sweeney cuts beggar woman's throat.

 

[Rosette3]

Mike Barrett said: "broadway86 said: "Quinn's fatal decision near the end of The Ferryman. It was amazing."

Yep, this was it for me. Loudest gaps could’ve been from me however lol. I nearly got out of me seat in pure shock."

Same here. I went into completely blind so it was definitely a shock and I audibly gasped haha. 

[MollyJeanneMusic]

“And that is when I remembered...I didn’t want to have a kid.”

*cue the falling baby toys*

(Mike Birbiglia’s The New One)

[LizzieCurry]

Re: Hadestown’s plot, I don’t think the myth is one that is taught repeatedly in school unless you’re deeply into classics or art history. I only knew of it vaguely from high school, which was over 20 years ago. I remembered it partway through the show, but I’m guessing a lot of people have forgotten it or just never knew.

[a-mad]

WldKingdomHM said: "End of Act 1 -Proof"

 

You beat me to the punch... ^ THIS!

 

[Wildcard]

The Woman in Black, after the flashlight goes out