Showstoppers - Witnessed Accounts of Show-Stopping Moments

I want this post to be FULL of moments that YOU witnessed on stage that stopped the show. The only limitation is that I don't want these moments to be injuries - but show-stoppers due to the performance.

Describe the moment, describe the audience's reaction - including your own.

Go!

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Sutton Foster singing "Gimme Gimme." Of course there were the screams and cheers from the audience.

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I saw WICKED in December 2003. I believe it had only been open for two months, since Halloween. This is directly after all the rave reviews and hype, before the huge teenage fanbase derived.

A huge standing ovation was given after the Act I Finale, "Defying Gravity." Though, it did not stop the show, since an intermission followed.

However, the show was stopped briefly later in Act II. Idina Menzel just finished "No Good Deed." A couple of people in the middle of the Orchestra section stood up and applauded loudly, just a tad more audible than what the audience's applause level. This prompted other random people throughout the Orchestra to stand. I turned around to see other small random section of standing patrons. Menzel was breathing heavily, smiled, and the show went on, forcing the audience to sit. But those brief 30 seconds seemed like an eternity.

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I also remember during the revival of INTO THE WOODS, the cow "Milky White" did something rather humerous, and the laughter in the audience would not stop. The cow then milked all he could get, adding more motion.

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ive seen sebastian bach fans add a few seconds onto jekyll&hyde by screaming and cheering after This Is The Moment... he blushed and had to turn away from the audience.

sutton foster's closing night at millie, lots and lots of extended applauses.

The final performance of Bells Are Ringing. When Faith Prince finished singing "I'm Going Back" the entire audience was on it's feet, screaming, hooting and hollering for nearly 3 minutes... to the point where cast members actually broke character onstage to motion to the audience to quiet down.

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When I saw Bernadette Peters in GYPSY last year, the audience gave her a standing ovation after "Rose's Turn." If there had been an applause meter, I'm sure it would have broken.

lc

"This is directly after all the rave reviews."

Let me rephrase - not reviews from critics, but from theatregoers at this message board. It was BroadwayWorld.com that sparked my interest in the show, and further research that made me want to go see it.

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I would give *anything* to have been a part of what Margo saw at Dreamgirls.

I don't know if this counts, but during Assassins there was a tangible "stopped" feeling when the Zapruder film was projected onto Lee Harvey Oswald's shirt.

Brian Stokes Mitchell in MOLM singing "The Impossible Dream." Standing ovation, tears. It was classic. I do believe that is the exact moment I fell in love with him.

Sorry to put you to shame Margo, but I guess you never got to see Melanie in Chicago.

What was supposed to be the "Hot Honey Rag"....WOW.
Just...WOW.


The audience was just screaming by the end...I had tears in my eyes...

Sidebar - Who's Jennifer Holiday?

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i saw a performance of Kiss Me Kate and the number "It's Too Darn Hot" stoped the show for a solid 5 minuets. the guy who sang it did a huge tap number near the end of the song and it was absolutly amazing. Also when i saw Jeykll and Hyde "Murder Murder" stoped the show it was done very well.

The one night only "Follies" concert in Melbourne, 1993. Beautiful Girls was sung by Jeff Warren, ( who replaced Russell Nype in "Call Me Madam" in 1950 then opened the West End company with Billie Worth in '52) Jeff had not been seen on the Australian musical theatre stage since he came out here to play the King in "The King and I" in 1962. As the parade of leading ladies came down the staircase it was like watching our musical comedy history unfold: Sheila Bradley, the English mezzo who had replaced Joan Diener in the London "Kismet" then made her career and home in Australia. Nancye Hayes, our Charity Hope Valentine, Dorothy Brock and Parthy Ann Hawks. Toni Lamond, who starred in "Pajama Game", "Oliver!" and "Gypsy". Jill Perryman, Australia's Funny Girl and Dolly. Glenda Raymond, a legendary opera soprano coming out of retirement after almost 40 years. Maggie Fitzgibbon, who had made her career in London but returned for one show in the 60s ("Sail Away") at the request of Noel Coward. The mere sight of these fabulous ladies on one stage brought forth a roar from the audience that none of us had ever heard before. It was a sound repeated steadily through the night...Lamond's Broadway Baby, Hayes and the women dancing with their ghostly counterparts in Who's That Woman?, Perryman's electric Could I Leave You and...the piece de resistance...Maggie Fitzgibbon revealing that laser beam voice, unchanged since her West End triumphs in "Boys From Syracuse" and "Do Re Mi", as she tore into I'm Still Here. One Night Only..but no-one in the audience that night will ever forget it.

The terrible thing was that Flora Roberts (Sondheim's agent)had it in the contract that the performance was not to be taped, so we were all broken hearted that there would be no record of this extraordinary night. Then many months later, apparently Mr. Sondheim inquired if there were any tapes of the show floating about. When he was told that the contract had been honoured, he was quite surprised, saying that usually the overtures of special events like this are drowned out by the "clicking on of cassette recorders"!