This has been done a few times before but anyway...
I love in Les Miz, in The ABC Cafe the really cool jazzy piano bits when Marius is singing about his feelings for Cossete.
I also love Defying Gravity (By far the best thing about Wicked) and My Body from The Life.
About four different moments during "Lot's Wife" from CAROLINE, OR CHANGE if I had to choose one it would be:
"Slam, go the iron. Slam, go the iron. Flat! Flat! Flat! Flaaaaaaaaaaaat"
Maggie's money note in "At The Ballet" from ACL.
When the full chorus enters in "The Old Red Hills of Home" from Parade.
The very end of "Beautiful Girls" from Follies.
The first time I heard "Our Kind of Love" from THE BEAUTIFUL GAME, I got chills.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/16/05
Also, "Sarah" from THE CIVIL WAR due to the fact that it was based on a real letter written by a soldier to his wife. The first time I heard that (along with the 500 times afterward), I had tears. But, on the VERY first time I heard it, I couldn't move because I was so emotionally involved with it.
Another one from CAROLINE, OR CHANGE. During "Mr.Stopnick and Emmie" when Emmie a.k.a Anika Noni Rose starts singing over Stopnick's voice: "I'd like to know how/Some guy just off a plain/Marching in to explain/Guess you've seen it all plain/From the air/It's our affair/Start to make a difference/Here comes your "assistance." The passion Rose puts in these words is just breath-taking, also during the Epilogue when she sings: "Down to Larry and Emmie and Jackie and Joe. The children of Caroline Thibodeaux." Brilliant.
From GREY GARDENS, when Little Edie and Big Edie both sing "my season ended a long time ago" in "Another Winter in a Summer Town."
And pretty much every other word from Sondheim's "Move On."
The piano bit at the beginning of Sunday in Sunday in the Park with George.
Chita's part in Mrs. A from the Rink "I guess you're not really there. I don't believe in you. I don't believe in you."
There's more, I'll add on.
The beginning of A Chorus Line...you know, the "Ok, away from the mirrors... A five, six, seven, eight" and the orchestra jumps in. It was my first ever Broadway show my junior year in high school and that moment was magical. And when I saw this incarnation of it, I still got chills at that point.
Also "Is It Really Me" from 110 In The Shade. The whole thing really, but especially that orchestra swell before the final part. LOVE it!!!
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/3/05
Grey Gardens- In "Another Winter in a Summer Town" when big and little Edie harmonize on "my season ended a long time ago." Gives me chills every time. Also during Daddy's Girl when she sings "don't waste your life on talent you have none OF."
Chorus Line- At the Ballet always gives me chills when they harmonize on "up a steep and very narrow stairway, to the voice like a metronome."
Okay more:
Baby, dream your dream (Sweet Charity)- "If only I could dream a dream"
No More (Into the Woods)- "No more feelings, time to shut the door"
Fable (Light in the Piazza) "May it last forever... Clara, the Light in the Piazza" (I'm tearing up just writing that!)
Still Hurting (The Last 5 Years)- "Covered in scars I did nothing to earn"
Eva's Final Broadcast (Evita) "I'm Argentina, and always will be"
Live, Laugh, Love (Follies) The final lines between the Phyllis, Sally, Ben, and Buddy. It's just crazy.
One More Kiss (Follies)- Yeah, pretty much that whole song. Just amazing.
In Assassins, particularly in the revival, when Oswald shoots and that music swells is one of the most chilling moments, IMO, I've ever experienced.
- The music that swells when Mary opens the door at the end of Act One in "The Secret Garden".
- Pretty much most of 'The Next Ten Minutes' from "The Last Five Years"; after the wedding and Kathy just keeps going back in the boat singing "Is that one John Lennon?"
- The last section of "Defying Gravity"; Right from the key change into Elphaba's dialogue, the music is so energized and there's the constant feeling of something about the burst forth.
- "Scrapbooks full of me in the background." - Gypsy
- The music as Javert jumps off the bridge in Les Miz.
- The overture music and opening scene to "Miss Saigon". Too bad that's the only thing I seemed to have enjoyed about the whole show.
- 'Prologue' in "Ragtime". Especially the end where all those voices rise and come together. I used to listen to that over and over again on my iPod.
Updated On: 5/29/07 at 08:16 AM
Theres something I forgot!
Javerts suicide. That has to be some of the coolest orchestral music i've ever heard!
The first time I ever got chills from a song was from listening to Michael Crawford, in POTO, in a darkened theatre, hit those notes in "Music of the Night."
Second time...Colm Wilkinson's "Bring Him Home," from the first note all the way through to the final note.
Both of those changed my theatre going experiences.
Broadway Star Joined: 12/31/69
Maybe you have to be of a certain age for this to get to you, but holy smokes this lyric just eviscerates me.
"I Dreamed a Dream":
"I had a dream my life would be/so different from this hell I'm living/so different now from what it seems/now life has killed the dream I dreamed."
My signature on this board is the most chilling line I've EVER heard. ("A birdcage I plan to hang. I'll get to that someday. A birdcage for a bird who flew away...around the world".)
I listen to it on the subway and tear up.
The others-well, one more GG moment: "My season ended a long time ago"
and I'll never forget hearing Eponine sing "Without me/his world will go on turning/the world is full of happiness that I have never known". Just tear up writing it-such a universal feeling, IMO-unrequited love.
and in "Wicked"-"Don't wish, don't start. Wishing only wounds the heart. I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl. There's a girl I know. He loves her so. I'm not that girl".
(Yes, I know, too much 'unrequited love'. But, my heart just goes out to them because I've had it happen. I daresay we all have.)
ps-I'll never forget seeing the late, great Laurie Beechman do "I Dreamed a Dream"-my first B'way show!
Pretty much all of 30/90 from ttB.
Leading Actor Joined: 7/27/05
Lots and lots of stuff from Cabaret. Particularly I Don't Care Much, the drumroll as Willkommen starts, and the Finale of course. And the title song, near the end as Sally breaks down.
Light in the Piazza - "I see it. Now I see it. Everywhere, its everywhere its everything and everywhere. Fabrizio. The light in the piazza; my love."
When Audra McDonald sings "Lizzie he's not yours, Lizzie in his life your part is very small..." in "I Won't Mind"
Bare: A Pop Opera - "All I ever want is there in your eyes. They tell me I'm alright and I realize that I always knew."
Jekyll and Hyde - "Love is worth forgiving for, now I realize, everything worth living for is there in his eyes."
and...
Ragtime - "You were my sky, my moon, and my stars, and my ocean... we can never go back to before."
In GG, Edie's meltdown during Around The World, where she shrills about wasting her time "washing clothes on the GD machine" and shrieks she will "shove you under the GD bed." She then quickly transitions to the softer/heartbroken pieces of the song. The first time I heard the recording I shuddered. When I saw it live I was mesmerized.
Broadway Star Joined: 4/27/05
Move On - Sunday In The Park With George - the last chorus where George and Dot sing in harmony
The Bells Of St. Sebastian - Nine - the entire song, but especially "... and the muuuuuuusic of the ringing, was a different world that opened through our singing...." etc
Anybody familiar? How great is that song?
Broadway Star Joined: 3/18/05
I always tear up when in the finale of Sweeney Todd, where Sweeney is singing "Oh My GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD" and then all of the sudden the orchestra switches to the reprise of A Little Priest. It's just so brilliant I can't help but cry.
Audra McDonald gives me chills. In general.
The trio section of Now/Later/Soon.
"Tell him God, if he EVUH, EVUH, EVUH hit me again, (change in music) LAAAAAARY, Emmy, Jackie, Joe"... from Caroline. How Tonya lost the Tony, I just don't know. There are too many amazing moments in that show. Like "Come on, Momma, TEACH me what you kno-ow" section. Pure Brilliance.
After listening to all of Parade, Shma/Old Red Hills of Home reprise leaves me so angry, it gives me chills.
When two voices in love tragically become one...
"...and rain will make the flowers...grow."
-Les Miserables
Ooh, also in bare "I've been trying to tell you this since I was... twelve."
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