It’s been said that the original production of Assassins often got gasps once
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Lee Harvey Oswald came onstage. After spending the whole show with the other, less famous (with the exception of John Wilkes Booth) assassins, suddenly an audience likely filled with people who vividly remembered the day of JFK’s assassination were now reliving the events through the killer’s eyes.
On the topic of Assassins, I imagine Booth’s dropping of the N word often gets its fair share of gasps. We’re taught to think of him as a monster when we’re young, but suddenly, The Ballad of Booth shows him in a seemingly fair and unbiased light, displaying that he had some legitimate grievances with Lincoln. But not too long after we find ourselves sympathizing with the most hated actor of all time, he shows his true colors, with one simple phrase displaying that whatever other reasons he had, the man was largely motivated by his racism, and just like that, our sympathy is gone. It’s a brilliant moment, on par with a similar lyric at the end of If You Could See Her Through My Eyes from Cabaret.
The Broadway production added some new staging that I’m sure got their fair share of gasps as well. I’m referring to Booth shooting himself in the head onstage (previously a blackout and sound effect was used), seeing Charles Guiteau’s hanging corpse (they didn’t really bother to hide that it’s an obvious dummy, but it gets the job done, and much like with Booth, it’s much more disturbing than the original blackout), and having the footage of JFK’s assassination projected onto Oswald after he fires the shot that killed the president. Those are all brilliantly horrifying visuals that no doubt shocked many audience members.
A non spoiler example would be the first time Hades speaks in Hadestown. Before he comes down those steps, our soloists for the evening consists of women and two tenors, Hermes, being played André De Shields with his instantly recognizable high pitched voice, and Orpheus, who’s music consists of a lot of very high falsetto. So when Hades finally speaks, hearing Patrick Page’s extraordinarily low voice can send shivers down an audience’s spine. A similar thing happens with the opening line of Hey, Little Songbird where we hear just how low that part can really go. And man does it go low. And of course, as others have mentioned
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Orpheus turning to see Eurydice
One that’s a bit different from the other examples listed comes from Spongebob Squarepants when the titular character climbs the ladders near the end while belting. Particularly the moment when he flips upside down in a pretty dangerous looking stunt. I can’t remember whether or not the Broadway production added a safety harness, but I specifically remember that the original version in Chicago had Ethan Slater doing it without one, and there’s footage where you can clearly hear the audience reacting in what sounds like a mix of fear and awe.
Tootsie recently had some comedic moments that simultaneously shocked the audience and had them cracking up
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The beauty of Jeff Sums it Up is the sheer out of nowhere nature of hearing the phrase “you ****ed it up”. The original film never once uses the F word, and it initially seems like the show is following that path. But then, Act 2 starts off with an absolutely shocking barrage of F bombs that had the audience in stitches.
There’s another brilliant moment that diverges from the original film in This Thing. Much like Jeff’s out of nowhere profanity, seeing Max ripping off his shirt to reveal a Dorothy tattoo stopped the show cold. When I saw it, I think the audience may have laughed and clapped for a full minute. And while this moment isn’t as shocking since it occurs in the film, seeing Jeff enter immediately after Max’s declaration of love had a similar effect with another extremely long round of applause and laughter.
Sweeney Todd has a few examples, all relating to the same plot point, one of which was mentioned
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The reveal that the Beggar Woman was Lucy all along can easily get a gasp, but Sondheim realized that there wasn’t a consistent spot where the audience collectively realizes the truth. The musical cue to the same tune as “And my Lucy lies in ashes” was mentioned before, but that’s only one of several reveals. Before that, there’s the more subtle moment when the Beggar Woman’s frantic music slows down and turns into the music of the ball from Poor Thing. And of course, when Sweeney finally see’s her face. The reason why Sondheim created the Beggar Woman’s Lullaby was because he realized there wasn’t a general consensus on when the audience figured out the twist, and because of that, tried to create one with the song. He admitted that it didn’t work out that way, but decided that it wasn’t a problem since everybody in the audience will have found it out by the time that Sweeney does, either before him, or at the same time.
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