I've never seen Night Must Fall but just reading it is kinda scary.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/10/05
I'd have to agree that "Cats" is also pretty scary. It's scary that it ran for so long.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/23/05
Wicked, Phantom, and the Scottish play.
You can say "Macbeth" on a message board. It's not a theatre.
The original pre-Broadway production of Jekyll and Hyde had some genuinely creepy and startling moments. My favorite was when Hyde appears in Lucy's room just before he kills her. It was pitch black with flashes of lightning and in one of the flashes, he was just suddenly there by her bed. There were audible gasps and this wonder murmur of tension rippling through the audience. It was chilling.
Also, not actually scary, but very creepy was the effect of the crowd in An Inspector Calls, especially in the final tableau.
Daniel Day Lewis did a genuinely scary Dracula years ago.
Ian McDairmid gave a chilling portrayal of descent into madness in The Black Prince.
The prospect of having to watch another ALW show scares the cr*p out of me, too!
Show that I saw live: 2002 tour of Cabaret. The creepiest moments for me were "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" (which I still skip on the CD) and the finale. When the Emcee took off his coat at the end, it was like getting punched in the stomach. You could've heard a pin drop in that theatre.
Show(s) that I saw recordings of: Any version of Sweeney Todd. Especially at the end, when Toby comes across Sweeney cradling the Beggar Woman's body. In my mind, Neil Patrick Harris and Ken Jennings were the creepiest, but Mano was nothing to sneeze at. Plus the whole "buckets of blood" thing in the revival had a tendancy to make my skin crawl. "City on Fire" gets notable mention from the Hal Prince staging, mainly because his effective use of lighting and the factory whistle.
I found WAIT UNTIL DARK pretty scary, when I saw it, all those years ago; but, the scariest show I ever saw was THE WOMAN IN BLACK.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/14/05
The recent tour of Aida. The man who played Zoser was the most horrifying thing that has ever happened to me.
"The Pillowman" seriously freaked me out. Both in the sense that the subject material was rather disturbing, but there were also two instances where the audience actually jumped from their seats. Gosh, I wish I could go back and see that play a second time. I really enjoyed it.
I have to agree on Pillowman. I felt nacreous after that show. It was very well done, but terrifying when you thought about it.
Cabaret's terrifying. When I was in rehearsal for the show, the whole cast went to a local college to see a production of it, just to get ideas. We all knew how it was going to end, we even had blocked it by this point...but it still sent chills up and down my spine. From then on, appearing in the finale (and leading "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," for that matter!) always creeped me out.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
"The Woman in White" because it had a perfect combination of realism, fantasy, and shock.
When I was little, I saw a high school production of OLIVER!
Seriously, whenever Nancy was murdered, I was so scared...
sweeney todd...
When done well, Wait Until Dark can be truly terrifying. When not done well (like, apparently, the last revival) it can be truly awful.
I saw a great production at a local college last year that sent chills down my spine.
I'll also add THE WOMAN IN WHITE, as it made me so dizzy I was ready to throw up by the end of Act I.
In a bad way "Don't Play Us Cheap". It was a musical about 2 cockroaches invading a party in Harlem. I kid you not
When a member of the Blue Man Group climbs up to the balcony, straddles your seat like the Colossus of Rhodes, and proceeds to freak dance, you know you're watching the scariest piece of theatre on earth.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/16/05
Wait Until Dark was pretty scary. Sweeney Todd was a little bit scary.
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
2 Questions:
I've heard so much about Inspector Calls and Wait Until Dark.
What are they about?
Featured Actor Joined: 8/25/04
Sweeney Todd the play (not the musical). I saw it in this little blackbox theatre and it was so dark, bloody, realistic and downright gruesome. It was fantastic!
Wait Until Dark is about a blind woman who is being hunted by narcotics dealers because she accidentally intercepts a doll filled with heroin. It was made into a movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin in 1967 and garnered Miss Audrey her fifth and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Woman in Black! It's a play, but it is so scary. I sat front row and the fog machine was right in front of us. The acting was amazing. It's a great play.
Broadway Star Joined: 2/7/06
This isn't a show per se, but I saw four scenes from a grand guignol workshop. Not was only downright creepy, but it was really scary- even thought I was four feet away from the actors!
I'm amazed that more people haven't seen WOMAN IN BLACK! It's London's longest running play (or it used to be, not sure if that's changed) and is the scariest experience I have ever had in my life! I know there have been plenty of regional and community productions in the US, but I was able to see the London production in 2001 and I was almost in tears by the end. And I've always been one who could handle scary movies/haunted houses/etc- but this show almost had me running to the lobby.
"I wash my face, then drink beer, then I weep. Say a prayer and induce insincere self-abuse, till I'm fast asleep"- In Trousers
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