Moments in shows that make you cry

i know there have probably been threads like this, but here goes another one:

so what moments in shows make you cry?

for me its after logaine loses her word in "SPELLING BEE" and her goodbye song, right after she hugs Mitch Mahoney---it just gets me every time!

Hmmm.. Les Mis -- When I finally saw it for the first time in London last year, I had tears when first Fantine, then Gavroche and finally Eponine died; I got choked up when John Owen Jones as Valjean sang "Bring Him Home," and at the end when he is dying, the tears really flowed.

I remember being teary at the end of Camelot when I saw it with Richard Burton in Lincoln Center. Same with The King and I when I saw that revival with Yul Brynner.

Christina Applegate made me cry so hard during "Where Am I Going?". I totally understood every feeling that was going through her heart during that song.

I also cried during "Fable" from The LightIn The Piazza.


and Rent made me dry because i wasted 2 and half hours of my life

Two moments in THE KING AND I:

* "Something Wonderful" - because the song is just SO beautiful

* And also "The Final Ultimo" - when the King dies. It is done so beautifully. The new king takes over, the old king dies peacefully, the music ("Something Wonderful") takes over, and only Anna sees that the King has died and kneels beside his bed to say goodbye to him.

Out of everything I have seen, the only thing in live theatre that brought me to tears happened on the second viewing of "The Light in the Piazza". I had gone opening night and had gotten quite accustomed to the score through repeated listenings. The second time I went, things were status quo and I was able to process new ideas, etc. Well, when Margaret launched into "The Beauty Is" reprise, it really hit me how much of a heartbreaking moment that is for the character - and her most revealing and personal moment in the entire show, with all of her pent-up regrets and hang-ups over the incident with Clara coming at the audience with full force. It was relevatory to me in understanding the character of Margaret as fully as possible and Victoria Clark's acting was so genuine and real that it tipped the scales and I just let loose.

Updated On: 2/10/06 at 06:21 AM

I think an easier question would be moments in shows that DON'T make me cry

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The Finale of Les Mis got to me. Also, the final moments of Virginia Woolf--shattering.

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These are not necessarily all "sad" points in shows...but just out of pure happiness/excitement/love for the shows, i totally could almost cry (or at least get goosebumps) at:


-the minute the curtain opens in Hairspray and the drum beat of "Good Morning Baltimore" starts
-"Little Fall of Rain"(Les Mis)...the beginning and the end
-The very end of the opening number of "Ragtime" when everyone is singing the beautiful harmonies on "It was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning..."
-"Any Dream Will Do" finale of "Joseph"...because it brings back personal memories of being in the show :)
-During "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" when his friends enter behind him, because he's remembering them since they just died...oh MAN it gets me!
-"I'm Dancing and I Can't Be Bothered Now" from "Crazy For You"...again for memory reasons:)
-the very first sound you hear in "Into the Woods"...that "ba-dum" of the drum...LOVE it
-in "Rent", during that Gordon's solo, "reason says i should've died 3 years ago.."
-"Tradition" during Fiddler...again something about a show starting just makes me so happy i could almost cry!
-the harmonies during "We Dance" at the end when the orchestra drops out (Once on this Island)
-cliche, but definitely "For Good" (Wicked)..and also the whole sequence when Elphaba is secretly leaving and Glinda thinks she is dead...i mean, that sucks! i just want her to tell Glinda!
-the entire song "I Wish I Could go Back to College" (Avenue Q)...exactly my life right now


for now that's it :)

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Bui Doi from "Miss Saigon": a surefire tear jerker

-"I'll Cover You (Reprise)" from Rent (and pretty much continuously through the end of the show)
-The short reprise of Masquerade at the end of Phantom of the Opera and the, "You alone can make my song take flight / It's over now, the music of the night."
-"'Til We Reach That Day" from Ragtime
-"No One Is Alone" from Into the Woods
-"Why" from Tick, Tick... BOOM!
-If well-acted, Dorothy's "Over the Rainbow" reprise in The Wizard of Oz

...Yep, I'm definitely a crier.

WSS - after the fury of A Boy Like That, when Maria sings "I have a love and it's all that I need, right or wrong and he needs me too". I've never made it through "When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong; your love is your love" without a handkerchief

RENT - "I'll Cover You: Reprise" If sung by the right guy. Namely Marcus Paul James or Mark Richard Ford.

Les Miz - For some reason when I hear Ruthie sing "If there's a god above/ He'd let me die instead" during her arrest it gets me.

Little Shop - "Somewhere that's Green" is so heartbreaking, especially if you know the show.

Into the Woods - "No One is Alone"

Hairspray - "I Know Where I've Been"

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Also "I Wish I could go Back to College" pulls at my heartstrings everytime *even though I'm still not even out of high school yet!* still sad though....