Worst Show Endings

First, posts like these make me physically sick. Secondly
Dance of the Vampires had one of the worst endings to a show I've ever seen.

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In a way i thought that HairSpray could of ended better i don't think tracy should of ended up with link. I didn't like the ending to hello dolly (well i don't really like any of hello dolly)

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The ending of Children of Eden left a message different then I had expected and so left something to be desired.

In the non-musical realm, the Glass Menagerie left a great deal to be desired as far as an ending goes.

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Without a doubt, Rent's ending.

I hated the ending of the Broadway "Tommy" in which Tommy forgives all his relatives who abused him. Everybody hugs and lives happily ever after. Total sell-out.

Also, the orginal concept of the story, Tommy's followers reject him as a messiah, and he his left alone. In the Broadway verion, he tells the followers that he is not a messiah, and they shouild not follow him.

I'm not sure if Children of Eden is a bad ending or just a bad book that falls apart in Act 2. I have never read Pygmalion by Shaw and was always puzzled at Freddy's inclusion in My Fair Lady. Thanks for the tidbit!

What's the worst ending ever?

I could say Jekkyl and Hyde because it just refused to end.

Mimi living at the end of Rent certainly diminished it's impact, that's especially so the longer it runs.

I would have to say Dance of the Vampires. The Thriller-esque dance number telling us that the Vampires were not defeated and were a'comin' for us literally made me slap my forehead... oh if I spoiled the ending for you, I profusely apologize, but I doubt it's gonna have much of a regional life, so your chances of seeing it are bootlegs or Lincoln Center. Hard to believe a show like that is in a library....

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You're a bit off about the ending of Pygmalion. Like My Fair Lady, its ending is ambiguous. It ends with Eliza and Mrs. Higgins going out to shop. Henry Higgins asks Eliza to buy some things for him. She tells him to go buy them himself and goes out. Mrs. Higgins says she'll take care of his shopping, but Henry confidently says that Eliza will do it, despite what she said. And that's it.

Shaw wrote a "sequel," which wasn't actually a part of the play but more like an explanation of what he thought would happen to Eliza and Henry. As he said:

THE rest of the story need not be shown in action, and indeed, would hardly need telling if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of "happy endings" to misfit all stories.

All of Pygmalion subverts various romantic stereotypes, so why should the ending be any different? Shaw says that Eliza and Henry would never end up together- she would marry Freddy because she would rather have him fetch her slippers than spend a lifetime fetching Henry's, no matter how attractive he may be.

And I like the ending of My Fair Lady. :)

I agree that the Rent ending is not believable. In La Boheme, the character dies, but in Rent, she does not. In the Rent book, Jonathan Larson explains that the show is about life and not death (or something to that effect), and so he didn't want Mimi to die. Go figure.

I actually agree with Rent--I always liked it before, but thinking about it now, it is pretty fake and unrealistic.

And I don't mind "Tommy"s ending. The whole thing is very upsetting, so a happy ending is effective, I think.

And Hairspray would have sucked if Tracy and Link didn't end up together. The ending fits the show.

The 2nd Act of Into the Woods after "The Last Midnight" always felt kind of forced to me.

It always cracks me up when people complain that the ending of Rent is "unrealistic". As if singing drug dealers is realistic in some way.

I also don't like the ending of My Fair Lady. Higgins is a jerk! Why would she ever go back to him? He treated her like crap.

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I love Wicked the book but the ending of the show bothered me. And whoever mentioned Millie is kind of right...but they are so cute you don't notice!