Eleven O'clock numbers — Page 2

We Beseech Thee- Godspell
I love to cry at Weddings- Sweet Charity
Shipoopi- The Music Man

---

How Lucky Can You Get?- Funny Lady (Film)

---

It's funny, because I think about 11 o'clock numbers as the time in the show where a song comes begins and you think back to listening to a recording and you think to yourself "oh no, the show's almost over!"

My vote for No Good Deed too! Also I think the song Light in the Piazza is the 11 o'clock number

---

Someone mentioned that "I Confess" was Footloose's 11 o'clock, which I certainly agree with. But since they've cut that out of the "new and improved" version of the show, I guess it no longer has an 11 o'clock.

I would have thought "Nowadays" would have been Chicago's not "Razzle Dazzle".

"She's My Love" - Carnival
"Gimmie, Gimmie" - Thoroughly Modern Millie
"A Change in Me" - Beauty and the Beast

I don't really think of musicals that have been "influnced by Sondheim" as having "Eleven O'Clock numbers". You get songs like "Being Alive" and "Rose's Turn" because the character has come to the point of catharsis in the story. Had "Marry Me a Little" or "Happily Ever After" remained in "Being Alive"'s place, would you have said that they were "Eleven O'Clock numbers"?

"I'm Going Back" from "Bells Are Ringing" is a classic example. Judy Holiday told the writers when the show was out of town that she wanted a big song at the end of the show, or she might not come in with it. So, Comden and Green took a look at their book and picked out one of Holiday's biggest laugh lines and build a song around it.

That's the type of old-fashioned thinking that gets us "Eleven O'Clock numbers".

The modern shows that have "real" ones are the old-fashioned shows like "Hairspray" ("You Can't Stop the Beat") and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" ("Dirty Rotten Number").

---

Shipoopi actually, from The Music Man, is not an 11 o'clock number. The movie versions do it differently, but that song is actually the second number in Act Two on stage. Just puttin that out there .

Could The Beauty Is (Reprise) be 11 o'clock number? One of my all-time favorites is Last Midnight from ITW.

"Would "As If We Never Said Goodbye" (from "Sunset Boulevard")count as an 11 o'clock number?"

In some cases, ALW is a bit hard to decipher. I think "As If..." comes too early in Act 2. I think "Too Much in Love to Care" is more the 11:00 number.

---

I would have said that "I Know Where I've Been" is the 11 O'clock for Hairspray.

So do the writers.

---

Given some of the very odd suggestions, people ought to know that there is not an eleven o'clock number in every musical, nor was there intended to be. A show-stopping number is rarely an eleven o'clock number.

I think many posters have the wrong idea of an 11 o'clock number. It is supposed to be the big number at the END of a show usually for the star. A number in the middle of an act is NOT and never will be an 11 o'clock number.

Some of the numbers mentioned are certainly memorable and may be what are most remembered like Schapoopi (sp?) but are not 11 o'clockers. Neither is "Shall We Dance" even though it is probably the most important number in King and I.

Many shows do not have an 11 o'clock song simply because it does not fit the structure of the show. Carnival has a beautiful speech where Paul, the puppeteer, reveals how is is each of the puppets, but She's My Love is not the 11 o'clock type song.

When posting, don't think of your favorites or most exciting number from a show, think of the true meaning of "11 o'clock" number

---

Updated On: 3/12/08 at 01:08 PM