Scariest moments in a show...- Page 3

[logan0215]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 1:31am

The organ in PotO after the auction scares me to this day. My brother used to make me listen to it in the dark at full blast and I'd freak out.

The gunshots in Les Miz made me jump as well, but I'm truly haunted by that organ...

[commasplice]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 2:22am

The Doyle Sweeney Todd revival -- when Michael Cerveris climbed out of the coffin in the opening ballad, I wanted to hide under my seat. I knew it was coming, but it still scared the heck out of me. Even listening to the cast recording now makes me jump a little bit at that point. (I didn't feel anywhere near that thrill seeing David Hess on tour, though. Sorry, David.)

[sbflyfan]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 6:17am

- In POTO: The angel statue eyes and mouths lighting up during the "All I Ask Of You Reprise"

- Sweeney Todd (Doyle Revival): The door slamming shut by itself at the beginning, and also at the end of "Not While I'm Around" when it quietly and slowly opens with red light flooding out onto the floor.

- Wicked: the "clank-clank" and the Tin Man getting up from the chair and screaming. That really bothered me for some reason.

[Mamie]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 6:24am

I find gunshots to be very startling but I don't think I'd call them 'scary'. The only time I can remember being really scared in a theatre was when watching Michael Berresse hanging from the top of that back stage set in the "Kiss Me Kate" revival in '99. I loved the show and went back to see it a couple more times but I was absolutely certain that one day I would see him fall and break his neck. It really did scare me that much.

[My Oh My]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 6:55am

Gunshots also do me in. Every time.

Then there was the time I saw Ragtime for the second time in L.A. back in 1997--Houdini popped up right in front of me in the orchestra pit at the start of act 2. Truly magical.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 12:16pm

there were a couple of moments in phantom of the opera.

[elphabelle07]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 3:19pm

Gun shots are the worst. I jump out of my seat every time and often get laughed at hahahaha.
Aaaaaaaand the monkeys in "Wicked." They were friggin' creepy. I hated it when they were like...screaming and banging on the bars of their cage. CREEPY!

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 3:28pm

I consider moments in theatre that atmospherically spooky and disturbing to be 'scary'...MThese moments cause my heart to pound, my stomach to churn, and my face to flush with fear and anticipation.

Moments that make me jump are a different matter (but they can certainly happen in scary moments).

The scariest moment for me:

The "Totenklag" in Elisabeth, as staged in Vienna. The title character emerges from darkness toward her son's grave and emotionally sings through a self-guilt lament of how she failed her son as his mother (he has committed suicide). She then begs "der Tod" (Death) to take her away... It's a very chilling and emotional sequence.

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 11:15pm

Then "Ten Little Bullets" bit in the Les Miz revival.

[thevolleyballer]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 11:30pm

I'm not gonna lie... I yelped during the first bolt of lightning in "Little Mermaid."

I'm being absolutely, completely serious.

[Byron Abens]

Posted: 8/23/08 at 11:37pm

I don't think I've ever had any jump moments, but there are a few scenes that have disturbed, mostly from opera.

Lucia's big aria, if done properly, is absolutely bone chilling. I've seen it done once where I couldn't get it out of my mind. She entered, as usual, spattered in blood, singing with utter clarity and precision, perfectly controlled, all with the absolutely most vacant look on her face, completely checked out and emotionless, no idea where she is or what she has just done.

I did a Magic Flute a few years back where I could not watch the Queen during her Act II aria. The crazed look in her eyes was terrifying, truly psychotic.

The ending of Salome, as she raises the severed head of John the Baptist and kisses it on the mouth. Another absolutely demented moment.

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 12:08am

The closing moments of "Shining City," anyone?

[soon2bstar]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 12:08am

Um most of Blood Brothers especially the end of the 2nd act had me a little creeped out.

Funny story so my friend (who was in the student group with me) and I were roaming around the theatre at Intermission and we found this sign that said" caution there are 2 sequences in act 2 that involve live gunshots" so we are like ok what ever that kind of had me a little frightened (and if you have seen it the narrator guy is pretty creepy and disturbing). So we get to the last 5 minutes I'm sitting with 2 different people on the far right of the theatre orchestra row C and I notice the steps say keep clear.

During that scene is the frightening part... Nicky who is on anti-depressants or is going through withdrawl comes busting through the door a few feet away from the steps that say keep clear .. looking like a crazy man because that was his character at the point.... holding a GUN so I jumped out my seat. Then I look behind me and there is an actor playing a police guy about 2 rows behind me looking very serious and all of a cudden he starts talking through a megaphone and then holds a gun.. so I'm getting really creeped out by this.

THen after some dialogue in that scene he swings his hand accidentaly and the gun goes off (which is supposed to happen) and then the police officer 2 ROWS BEHIND ME shoots him and the both "die" and that is when I screamed. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen in the theatre at the age of 15. I had dreams about the creepy narrator guy for 2 days and just thinking about it gives me the chills

[soon2bstar]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 12:10am

sorry a continuation of what I just wrote but when I was younger my parents brought me to see the revival of Little Shop of Horrors, I loved the show but the plant eating the humans creeped me out for a good week and my school had a lot of exotic plants for a presentation that they wanted us to see and I saw a Venus Fly Trap and almost screamed.

[choked_on_tittup]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 8:27am

I don't see anything scary on broadway, but some frightening things have happened in my school productions. In the king and i when the amazons took tuptim and ran her off stage they almost ran into me but i moved and they crashed, in fiddler on the roof when the constable and police break in one of them threw a broken aud. seat at the door and i was standing very close to it not knowing what was going to happen, in oliver i was waiting for curtain call and a townsman takes a gun and shoots bill sykes and i had no idea the stage manager who was standing 2 feet away from me had a real gun and shot it unloaded. Scary stuff!

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 8:35am

"The closing moments of "Shining City," anyone?"

Preach it, Miracle!

[CHGriffiths]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 9:35am

Same with blood brothers, except i was on the isle of row E, with the copper next to me, My ears have never been the same since, I mean I ACTUALLY enjoyed Rent Remixed, that gun really screwed me up!!

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 9:40am

The opening of Footloose UK when there is no pre show announcement just all the instruments crash the 1st Chord of Holding Out For A Hero in the overture.........i nearly jumped in to a from the stalls to the circle level!!

Similar in Bad Girls when the show just opens with the cell doors banging

[changinandhow]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 11:46am

During Curtains, the scene where the stage manager is alone onstage and is hearing noises in the pit and after all the build, Edward Hibbert pops out of the stage with his cat... although I wasn't as bad as the woman down the row from me (who was directly in front of the two characters when it happened, we were front row) who screamed BLOODY MURDER and practically jumped into her friends lap.

[amoni]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 12:23pm

Two for me. In the Diana Rigg production of "Medea". The set was different levels covered in metal panels. At the very dramatic end when you find out what she did to the kids, a bunch of huge metal panels fall in a huge crash to reveal the kids. Everybody jumped. Miss Rigg told me even she was scared the first time they tried the effect.

The other was also Matthew Broderick in "Night Must Fall" but it was the first five seconds of the show. Everyone is sitting, talking, minding their own business waiting for the lights to dim when all of a sudden the entire theater goes black and a huge thunder clap, than lightening flash made everyone jump.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 12:26pm

What happens in the last few minutes of SHINING CITY? I never saw the show.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 2:38pm

Bump

[kingtito133]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 4:34pm

-In PoTO in Vegas the Phantom drops out of the chandelier and screams at the actors on stage around the time it should drop (it does not fall until the end in Vegas, similar to the movie). Caught me off guard.

-In Miss Saigon toward the end when a gun shot is fire and a character drops dead made me gasp out loud. I was in my early teens and had no idea what happened in the show, so it was completely unexpected.

[BwayBebe]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 4:56pm

I have one its not so much scary as it is, uncomfortable

I saw a production called "ClosetLand" last year and the whole show was a bit creepy. The show revolved around a prisoner and a guard. During certain points in the show the prisoner was blindfolded and the production asked that whenever the prisoner was blindfolded that the audience should use provided blindfolds and blindfold themselves. All the lights in the theatre went out and all you could hear was the man's footsteps and screaming. After about two minutes I had to remove the blindfold it was just a bit too much for me to handle!

[Weez]

Posted: 8/24/08 at 5:07pm

Oh lord! This was so obvious I totally forgot about it!

Punchdrunk's 'Faust'. It's not a normal show, you don't sit in a seat and watch actors prace about on a stage. You don a mask - for anonymity and to remove inhibitions - and you walk around an abandoned dark warehouse that's been done up to look like a 1950s American town in a scary film, following actors whenever you see them and failing to unravel any plot but totally experiencing an unbeatable atmosphere. You need to steel yourself to take any steps in the dark, and some of the rooms were proper scary. There was a sortof field that reminded me too much of 'Silent Hill 4', and a corridor that was full-on 'Silent Hill'. And at one point, an actress got bored of me following her and locked me in a small room with another actress, who was playing the role of a terrified girl being visited by an unearthly apparition. There's nothing like being locked in a tiny room with someone staring at you in abject terror, then coming closer to embrace you, sit you down in a corner, and tell you a strange story about a girl who wanted to die and go to heaven so she didn't have to be alone anymore.

'Masque of the Red Death' from the same crew was less frightening somehow; this time I got locked in a very small cupboard with a hot dancer who caressed me and whispered in my ear. Although there were still some corridors I had to properly FORCE myself to go down because they were scary (especially the cellar O_O). But there were some rooms in 'Faust' I couldn't convince myself to enter at all, so that just about wins.

I keep hearing rumours that 'Faust' will be going to New York. I'm not even kidding, you simply MUST go if it does happen and you do get the opportunity!