The Most Effective Blackout in a Production

They can be very powerful sometimes and could end an intense or breathtaking scene. What do you think is the most effective blackout used in a production?

---

Yes that does.

---

It's not quite the type of blackout you're talking about, but the blackout in In the Heights is breathtaking.

A more traditional one would be end of Exit the King. Magnificent.

RentBoy, the act one finale. The song is called Blackout.

The most effective I've ever seen took place about a million years ago - at a regional theatre with a touring company of Jesus Chris Superstar. The show was done without scenery, costumes, or props. The cast wore denims and tshirts. They were so good that you were completely wrapped up in the show and I believe that props and costumes would have been a distraction. At any rate, at the end of the show, when it came time for the scourging to start, the theatre (which was an arena - with the audience wrapped around the circular stage) went completely black. You heard the whip and then you heard Jesus on the cross. At the moment of his death, just as John Nineteen Forty-one started, laser lights shot out from 4 points around the theatre and hit a mirrored disco ball which had come down over the center of the stage. Your pupils were dilated from sitting in the dark for so long and when the lights hit the slowly turning ball, it made waves of flickering lights sweep across the audience. It lasted until the end of the music. After the bare-bones plainness of the production and then the extended blackness - it made your heart jump into your throat. It was breathtaking!

---

The blackout at the end of "So Much Better" in Legally Blonde for sure.

Mendes Cabaret.
Doyle Sweeney.

I second the end of Act 1 in TLITP

Yeah In the Heights and Doubt were the first ones that came to me.

---

I'm not sure which one they're talking about, but two blackouts in Cabaret come to mind. The end of Act 1 when everyone is singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and Cliff, Sally, and Fraulein Schneider look on from the stairs in horror. Then the emcee comes out in front of the orchestra, turns his back and moons the audience with a swastika on his butt, and then a blackout. Or the end of the show when the doors go away and the emcee and the entire cast stand in front of this huge white light, while the emcee reveals concentration camp clothes, and then the lights go out.

My favorite blackout is the end of the "If I Love You" scene from Carousel. I watched the video at Lincoln Center a few weeks ago (one of the most phenomenal productions I've ever seen, but that's another thing) and the way the blackout is done is incredible. Julie says her line, "It's just their time to, I reckon" and then she and Billy kiss passionately, practically in a death grip. The lights around them go out with the exception of a spotlight on them. As the music continues, the hill they are on slides back and the spotlight tightens in on them. It continues until the final note, when the spotlight tightens exclusively on their faces kissing, and the hill is all the way at the back of the stage, and then the lights go completely out. The same effect is used at the end of "What's the Use of Wond'rin" with Julie on the island.

---

One that I thought was particularly memorable to me was at the end of The Lion King; the blackout at the end of the Circle of Life Reprise that closes the show (before the curtain call). I thought it was very powerful because the entire cast was on stage singing the same note and then BLACKOUT. The power of it may also be due, in part, to the intense bass that the blackout is accompanied by (as well as at the end of Circle of Life at the start of the show).

The first thing that came to my mind was "In the Heights"

When I saw Spring Awakening for the first time I was so intensly focused on Moritz that when he drew out the gun to kill himself for the final time, I was scared to hear that gunshot. When the lights dimmed I was frightened and waiting to hear a gunshot, but it never came. And when the lights faded back on to show Melchior and Moritz's father, I was very emotional. I thought it was a very good effect. Definitely one of the best uses of it I've ever seen.

As far as best timed and looking Blackout. The one in DG is amazing, if the timing is just right. In my opinion. When the lights all fade so fast, and then a split second later those that focus on Elphaba fade. It just looks great!