Posted: 7/26/19 at 9:46pm
Ordinary Days is pretty darn heartbreaking, even though there are certainly light-hearted points. If anyone doesn't know the show, just listen to I'll Be Here right now.
Posted: 7/26/19 at 10:04pm
I'm a product of my era:
FALSETTOS kills me every time, even in amateur productions.
Though nowadays, 1776 is a close runner-up.
Updated On: 7/26/19 at 10:04 PM
Posted: 7/26/19 at 10:07pm
Fun Home, Next to Normal, Spring Awakening, and bare have all brought me to tears.
I'm also going to throw Fiddler on the Roof out there. The beginning holds so many lighthearted moments which just makes the descent and the conclusion so much more difficult for me to watch.
Posted: 7/26/19 at 10:17pm
Posted: 7/26/19 at 11:06pm
-- Original Follies production
-- Les Miserables
-- Dear Evan Hansen...I saw that another poster disagreed. Well, I disagree. Evan himself is as sad a character as I have seen in a musical.
-- Fiddler on the Roof
-- Cyrano with Christopher Plummer
-- Act 2 of Sunday in the Park With George has always moved me...I felt so sad for George for a major portion of the act...he was so alone
-- Shenandoah, at least with John Cullum. The last song in the show leaves everyone in tears.
Posted: 7/26/19 at 11:08pm
Ragtime, for sure. Especially since its storyline and themes continue to remain so prominent in our society.
Posted: 7/26/19 at 11:24pm
I cry at the drop of a dime at musicals. I just have LOTS of emotions. So I am always blubbering and getting misty eyed. A few though that stand out to me more then others? My top three I can recall just LOSING it at one point or another during the show are....
- Ragtime: End of Act one is just brutal and while there are some uplifting moments in Act 2, that dark cloud hangs over everything from that point onward
- Aida: I was much younger then but I can distinctively recall crying my eyes out at the end of that one in the Palace Theatre bathroom at how sad yet beautiful the ending twist is.
-Les Mis: Shocked has not been mentioned more in this topic already cus..... it's Les Mis. Need I say more?
Posted: 7/27/19 at 3:50am
cats. i’d definately cry i had to sit through that for 2 hours. 😂
Posted: 7/27/19 at 4:19am
Posted: 7/27/19 at 9:53am
Posted: 7/27/19 at 1:27pm
I know Carousel ends on a hopeful note but there's a sadness that runs through that show where Julie and Billy are concerned. I also think Sunday in the Park with George is very bittersweet, not quite sad but there's a melancholy aspect to that show that's unmistakeable.
For me the saddest musical is Juno from 1959. It's not well known, but I have the score and I've seen it performed and it's a heartbreaking show.
Posted: 7/27/19 at 5:02pm
Posted: 7/27/19 at 5:16pm
If it counts as a musical, Porgy and Bess. Heartbreaking.
Posted: 7/27/19 at 7:18pm
Posted: 7/27/19 at 7:20pm
It's fresh in my mind because I saw a local production of the 1998 revival, but Cabaret is the most depressing musical I have ever seen.
Many tragic musicals announce the tragedy to come from the beginning (Fun Home, for example) or can be seen coming due to familiarity with the source material (West Side Story). But while everyone knows what happens when the Nazis come to power, Cabaret still has the ability to shock ("If You Could See Her Through My Eyes"
and mostly to break your heart. While Cliff and Sally are the ostensible stars of the show, their problems are minor and they can always leave. But the heart of the stage musical and the revival is the doomed romance between Herr Schultz (the Jewish shopkeeper) and Fraulein Schneider (the Gentile woman who runs the rooming house).
Schultz's act two reprise of "Marriage" is interrupted by a brick breaking the glass of his shop. And Schneider, having been warned by the Nazis, breaks off their engagement. "What Would You Do?" is the hardest song of all because it is the pointed lament of the older Schneider (to the young Cliff and Sally) about why she's doing so. She's not a bad person. She's just a German who is understandably afraid, and she's responding the way most non-heroic people would when faced with a fearful dilemma. "What Would You Do?" feels addressed to the audience too. Oh, sure. You'd stand up to the Nazis. You'd fight for love after years of loneliness. You're sitting there in your comfortable seat at a musical.
From the tail end of the first act through the brutal conclusion, Cabaret is relentlessly sad and makes its audience as uncomfortable as I can recall at any show I've ever seen. There's no catharsis, no theatrical high. There's just a bunch of disheartening thoughts to mull over afterward.
Updated On: 7/28/19 at 07:20 PM
Posted: 7/27/19 at 11:08pm
poisonivy2 said: "If it counts as a musical, Porgy and Bess. Heartbreaking."
I think it counts as musical or opera, as you please. And particularly in the old version it is indeed heartbreaking when Porgy, in his wagon, starts out for a place he has no idea how to reach. This is just one reason why giving Porgy a cane instead is a betrayal of the original version.
Posted: 7/28/19 at 12:41am
Parade and Carousel although Carousel ends on a slightly more hopeful note than Parade.
Posted: 7/28/19 at 6:14pm
Posted: 7/28/19 at 10:28pm
Hunchback of Notre Dame is probably by far the saddest show I've seen. Only growing up with the Disney movie I assumed the endings would be the same. Boy was I wrong lol!
After Frollo and Esmeralda die, Quasimodo breaks down and says the line "And there lies all I've ever loved" He then proceeds to fall on the floor and sob. I have never been so invested in a piece of theatre as I was at that moment. I began to tear up for Quasimodo. Then in the finale, Esmeralda enters in an all-white dress and smiles at Quasimodo, and that's when I lost it lol. I can still vividly remember that moment.
Posted: 7/29/19 at 8:04am
Some great choices already made in this thread, especially Scottsboro Boys.
I really like Urinetown, but the show, especially the ending, suggests a pretty damn bleak future for society
Posted: 7/29/19 at 8:36am
Posted: 7/29/19 at 9:22am
Posted: 7/29/19 at 11:46am
THE VISIT, while also not an absolute masterpiece, is pretty sad to watch and like URINETOWN, has some pretty bleak things to say about society.
Also want to add another chime to the NEXT TO NORMAL chorus. I was affected by it on Broadway, but just saw the Cromer production and holy crap, it felt like I'd gotten hit by a truck by the end. My group and I were all panting from sobbing for hours straight. (And...yet...it was lovely.)
Posted: 7/29/19 at 12:16pm
Alex Kulak2 said: "Dear Evan Hansen. Even if you think Evan's a bad person, it's hard not to feel bad for him when everything comes crashing down."
I disagree. I find it incredibly difficult to even try to feel bad for him. If I feel bad for anyone in that show it's all the Murphys and Heidi.
