Full Disclosure: Shows that have made you cry

I am currently writing an essay about how theater has made an emotional impact on me. Whether it was "A Normal Heart" because it made me see the toll that AIDS has on the individual but their family and friends as well or Jersey Boys during "Fallen Angel" because my friend recently lost her child. There are shows that have made me so happy I have cried as well. Here are a few other shows that have made me tear up. Some I am embarrassed to share

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Billy Elliot
Sondheim Celebration
La Cage
Wicked
Mary Poppins
August Osage County
Hair

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Angels in America
The Coast of Utopia
Passing Strange

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Next to Normal
A Chorus Line
Passing Strange
Grey Gardens
Sunday in the Park With Georg
A Tale of Two Cities
Billy Elliot

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In order of when I saw them:

1) RENT
2) NEXT TO NORMAL
3) NEXT FALL - This was f'ing brilliant!
4) SOUTH PACIFIC
5) A LIFE IN THE THEATRE - the one section at the end when Patrick Stewart's character attempted suicide by slashing his wrist, but pass it off as an accident.


My mother cried at WOMEN ON THE VERGE primarily because the day before, she found out my father was cheating on her, and the Patti LuPone character (sans the insanity) was the state my mother was in, verbatim.

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I'm an unapologetic crier. I won't count 'misting up' -- only downright sobbing. The top criers for me have been:

THE GOAT or WHO IS SYLVIA? (Los Angeles)

LES MISERABLES (London, before it was a 'sensation')

THE PRIVATE MESSAGE WHERE BRDWYPHREAK TOLD ME TO NEVER CONTACT HIM / HER (or HIMHER) VIA PRIVATE MESSAGE AGAIN

Okay, that last one admittedly didn't evoke tears.

I tend to tear up a lot when I go to the theatre. Not outright cry but definitely tear up. It won't even have anything to do with the plot. I think it's my pure love for the theatre and just being there.

The first show that comes to mind for me is South Pacific. The first time I saw it I cried from the moment that sweeping overture touched my soul to the moment where Emil & Nellie's hands clasped under the table.

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Next to Normal-So Anyway always gets me
Ragtime-Sarah's Death/'Till We Reach That Day made me choke up, along with the fact that it was the closing night of a show very near and dear to my heart
A Little Night Music-When Bernadette Peters looked me square in the eye, while weeping during Send in the Clowns, I completely lost it
Les Misérables-Honorable Mention: The first and (so far) only time I saw the show, I began to tear up at the end of 'One Day More'. I was blubbering like an idiot and asking my mom "What the hell did I just see?!" out of sheer amazement

wow- where to begin?

My first broadway show, Titanic. Then followed by many but the ones I remember without going through my playbills: Ragtime, (Even more in the revival, but it's because the show has grown so close to me over the years, Beauty and the Beast, Les Mis- not the first time, but every time I've seen it since then, I cry at least 3 times. The Scottsboro Boys (balled both times, both at the Vineyard and Broadway), Sunday in the park revival, Rent, Next to Normal.


Special mention to Journey's End. My brother was in Afghanitstan at the time, and we were so unsure about what was going to happen to him, And then that last two minutes followed by the final tableux (you know what I mean if you saw it) had me literally convulsing. I hugged my boyfriend, and just sobbed and sobbed. I've never had such a reaction to a piece of art than I did at that theater.

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West Side Story
The Phantom of the Opera
Les Miserables
Love Never Dies
A Little Night Music
Merrily We Roll Along
Sweeney Todd
RENT
Fiddler on the Roof

All for different reasons...

Oh yes, I'll agree with Gypsy. That bow that Angela Lansbury did after Rose's Turn makes me cry everytime.

Billy Elliot, Ragtime, Next to Normal, The Book of Mormon, Angels in America.

It takes very little to get me to cry. I tear up at pretty much everything, and I'm moved to tears by many.

Next to Normal- I sobbed
Rent- Angel's funeral and the end
Ragtime- ends of act 1 and 2
Yank
Shrek- Who I'd Be; I'm ashamed, but Brian d'Arcy James' voice gets me at that moment
La Cage- Douglas Hodge's "I Am What I Am"
Hair- the end
The Scottsboro Boys

I've never actually cried during a show, but I teared up during:

Grey Gardens
110 in the Shade
Light in the Piazza
Gypsy
ALNM
Ragtime
Fiddler