Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

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Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 11:46am

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.

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 11:58am

End of Act 1 -Proof

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 11:59am

The very last second of Paradise Blue at Signature Theatre.

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:02pm

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

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:02pm

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.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:03pm

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.

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:08pm

The end of Blackbird, when

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Ray's daughter appears

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:08pm

The end of Blackbird, when

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Ray's daughter appears

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:13pm

GRAND HORIZONS --- end of Act 1.

#10

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:16pm

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.

#11

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:23pm

WldKingdomHM said: "End of Act 1 -Proof"

Same here.

Just give the world Love. - S. Wonder

#12

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:27pm

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.

"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle

#13

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:28pm

August: Osage County. By a landslide.

#14

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:30pm

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.

#15

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:32pm

delete

Updated On: 2/12/20 at 12:32 PM

#16

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:34pm

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.

Just remembering you've had an "and" When you're back to "or" Makes the "or" mean more than it did before

#17

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:36pm

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.

#18

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:42pm

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

#19

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:48pm

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.

Updated On: 2/12/20 at 12:48 PM

#20

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:51pm

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.

#21

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:58pm

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.

#22

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 12:58pm

“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)

"I think that when a movie says it was 'based on a true story,' oh, it happened - just with uglier people." - Peanut Walker, Shucked

#23

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 1:03pm

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.

"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt

#24

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 1:05pm

WldKingdomHM said: "End of Act 1 -Proof"

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

#25

Loudest gasp you've heard in the theatre

Posted: 2/12/20 at 1:16pm

The Woman in Black, after the flashlight goes out

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