COUP DE THEATRE

The clown car helicopter in Miss Saigon was as lame as the rest of that limp show.

I think the spectacle and British megamusicals of the 1980s began with EVITA. The balcony scene which opens Act II (i.e. Peron's presidential inauguration) was pretty thrilling at the time., especially with the use of rear projection and crowd sound effects, not to mention the rest of the company below as the actual crowd and, of course, the most famous song in the show "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." Everyone talked about the 'balcony scene.'

Any stagecraft involving flying floats my boat. Elephaba rising to the Western sky singing Defying Gravity in WICKED. The gorgeous airborne pas de deux in BILLY ELLIOTT. And the magical I'm Flying from Sandy Duncan's PETER PAN. Exquisite.

Circle of Life in Lion King.

When the characters become the painting in Sunday in the Park.

The terrifying Act I climax of Deathtrap with the incomparable Marian Seldes. Audiences were literally screaming!

The creation of the Carousel in the 1990s revival of Carousel.

The original staging of One Day More in Les Miz

The original staging of Who's That Woman in Follies

[quote]The original staging of One Day More in Les Miz.

This. Was it changed in subsequent productions?

In "The Act," Liza had a costume change in which she was standing center stage and the gown descended on her. Well, it was a surprise. Also, although this isnt Broadway, at her Carnegie Hall concert in 1987, her gown had such a long train that as she exited the train kept moving while she reemerged in a new outfit. That was something.

I thought the chandelier that slowly and carefully came down at an angle was pathetic.

I am luck I go back a ways. Well if you call that lucky.

In the original production of Hello Dolly when the chorus entered in Put on Your Sunday Clothes and started slowly circling the orchestra on the runway. It was a very simple but a very magical moment that kind of took the audience by surprise and they burst into applause.

The transformation from the rubble of the theater to Loveland at the Winter Garden. Because the sets were so large and elaborate the drab gray ruins of a theatrical palace in what seemed like a matter of moments to a brilliantly colored lavish Ziegfeld Follies production number was heart stopping.

Carousel at the Jones Beach theater. During the opening moments of the prologue with the mournful opening you saw and heard the water lapping up against the stage. That vast stage across the water was covered with the hills of New England. When the music built to the main waltz the huge stage revolved the hills disappeared and a revolving carousel came into to view along with the entire carnival and all the people. Again totally unexpected and magical on a summer night in the open air.

The staging of Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime with its use of past and present imagery had a stunning mirror moment when Karen Black's character is revealed for who she used to be.

Marie Callas' reverie with the music swelling in Master Class. Chills!

Sarah Kane's "Blasted" @ Soho Rep. A few scenes in a hotel room; there's an enormous god-awful explosion, and when the lights come back up the floor of the theatre is torn wide open.

R10, please write more. I don't care what the topic is, just enjoy your perceptions and writing style.

Oh, god....the slooooooooowly falling chandelier in "Phantom" was so disappointing and stupid.

Bert in "Mary Poppins" walking/dancing around the proscenium was pretty fucking amazing however.

The use of the "toy house" in "An Inspector Calls" was brilliant.

Oh, the end of "Millennium Approaches" and the arrival of the Angel and "The Great Work Begins!"

The recent Broadway production of Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella had a transformation in each act. The first one was good but Cinderella had to go off to the side to quickly attach her skirt. The second one featured the fairy godmother throwing rags up in the air, and Cinderella did a spin change into a gold dress at the exact moment the rags landed on her. EVERYONE gasped. I swear, she did it in fewer spins than Wonder Woman.

That Gower Champion staging of "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" was so simple yet exciting.

The super-fast costume change in the original production of "Dreamgirls" during the "Heavy" sequence, starting at 2:42 (you can hear the audience gasp and applaud at about 2:50).

It wasn't expensive, but it was genuinely thrilling.

Sorry, that was the wrong clip from "Dreamgirls"--let's try again.

The Las Vegas Version of PHANTOM had the chandelier drop that we all wanted. First you see the Phantom swinging from the chandelier just above our heads. Then he screams. Then the chandelier starts to explode. It came straight down onto the folks sitting in the orchestra. Really fast. It scared me half to death!

Here's a video of when it rises to the rafters. Looks a like a huge spaceship taking off.

SHOGUN THE MUSICAL was a huge bomb on Broadway, but the scene where they ride out of the fog on horses was fantastic!

DINNER AT EIGHT at Lincoln Center. When you walked into the theater, floating in the air above the orchestra, was a fully dressed dining table with seating. It had candelabra, all the place settings, flowers, elegant chairs - the whole deal. You don't see it again until the final scene, when the guests actually arrive for dinner at eight. Fabulous.

For the poster who likes flying, "The Witches of Eastwick" in London had the lead ladies fly out over the audience.

The entire experience of WAR HORSE on stage, but especially the moment when young Joey the foal circles the stage and then the adult Joey leaps from the smoke. Breathtaking.

The SOUTH PACIFIC revival at Lincoln Center. To the dramatic chords of Bali Hai, the stage floor rolls back to reveal the entire 30-piece orchestra. We'll probably never see that again.

R21 the Phantom was not swinging on the chandelier in the Vegas PHANTOM. That show was an abridged version of the show. It was only 95 minutes, instead of the usual 140 minutes, and as such no intermission. In the regular full length versions of the show, the Phantom is up in the rafters somewhere and the chandelier comes crashing down to end Act I. But the Vegas production took a cue from the film, and the chandelier comes down toward the end of the show, while the Phantom is on stage with Christine performing his opera, DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT.

The MET has many showstopping moments. In AIDA, just before the Triumphal Scene, the wall at the back of the stage drops into the stage to show the scene behind it. In La Boheme, seemingly all of Paris shows ups for the outdoor scenes. In the Zeffirelli production of La Traviata, the entire bedroom descends from the top of the stage.

R25 the audience is strangely very quiet. Is that normal for a London audience?

In SUNSET BOULEVARD, Norma Desmond's living room also descends from the top of the stage.

I loved in Sunset Boulevard how Norma's gigantic empty mansion rolled back to reveal the raucous New Year's party in the crammed Hollywood apartment.

Many years ago, there was an off-Broadway musical at the Lucille Lortel Theater called TRIXIE TRUE, TEEN DETECTIVE. On that tiny stage, they had Trixie swimming in the ocean, only to be swallowed by a whale/underwater submarine.

"Douglas Watt from the New York Daily News complained not only that the show had "no more depth than an animated cartoon," but also that "there were too many close-cropped young men in the audience," [5] an apparent reference to the musical's enthusiastic gay following."

The opening of "Hairspray," with Tracy viewed lying in her bed at a perpendicular angle with shadows of a dancing couple playing on her was pretty remarkable.

In the original PACIFIC OVERTURES, set designer Boris Aronson's U.S. gunboat ship slowly coming forward, looking like a fearsome Japanese dragon! Amazing.

The overture to Bartlett Sher's revival of SOUTH PACIFIC, with the stage rolling back to reveal the entire orchestra, dressed in evening clothes, playing for all they're worth.

The mounted British officer getting hit by a shell and knocked off his horse during the battle scene in the stage version of WAR HORSE.

So many stage effects in the trilogy play, THE COAST OF UTOPIA, but, foremost among these. the image at the beginning of each play, of the F. Brian O'Byrne sitting in a chair, above a black ocean of raging waves, all of which are sucked into a hole beneath his chair, as it slowly descends to the stage. (Jack O'Brian's direction of this show was possibly the best I have ever seen anywhere. Stunning moments all through.)

The descending of the scrim at the end of the original production of 1776, showing the actual Declaration, with the actors in tableau behind it. Then the lights suddenly go down on them, and come up on the proclamation, and, as the music reaches crescendo, the show is done.

A lovely moment in COCO, when a film of Jon Cypher as her father plays above her, when he's about to depart on a train, and Katherine Hepburn is downstage, reaching up with both arms, calling, "Come back!" In that second, she was a real child begging her father not to leave. Electric.

The staging of the Frank Langella DRACULA, with the black and white sets designed by Edward Gorey, with only a single touch of red in each act. One forgets just how effective set design can really be.

John Dexter's staging of the original production of Peter Shaffer's THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN, with that stylized Spanish shield opening out to reveal a huge Inca sun image, with David Carradine as Atahualpa in all his feline glory. I saw this 50 years ago, and it is still one of my greatest memories of stagecraft.

Donna McKechnie's solo dance in the original COMPANY, substituting for the sex going on between Bobby and April. Nothing in a film version could ever duplicate that intensity.

The staging of "Too Many Mornings," in the original production of FOLLIES, where Dorothy Collins stands on one side of the stage, reaching out with both arms to John McMartin on the other side of the stage. He's reaching out with both arms too, but to her younger self, who's also reaching out to him. This says in one powerful image the exact picture of their connection. She wants him now, but he wants his memory of her. Incredible.

3 marvelous, but simple stage effects in productions at my prep school, about 50 years ago. The first was a campfire for a scene in CORIOLANUS, created by a fan under an opening in the stage floor, with strips of muslin attached to it, and orange lights underneath, creating from a distance a realistic campfire. Then, for a production of THE COCKTAIL PARTY, an elevator which brings characters to the apartment, through which characters could be seen slowly descending, which must have been done with the actors slowly lowering themselves as a panel slid down. Very effective. Last, for a production of Cocteau's ORPHEE, a mirror to one side of the stage, through which Death and her 2 henchmen pass. Identical vases and flowers were on either side of what was actually a doorway, but the illusion was so strong that when the characters entered, it actually looked like they were walking through a mirror. So simple, yet so stunning to watch.

And, in one of my very first professional theatre experiences, a parade of courtiers carrying banners, maneuvering back and forth in patterns across the stage, then ascending spiral stairs on either side of the stage to stand with their banners hanging down, as the throne room appears at the end of Act II in the original staging of CAMELOT. (Saw touring company in 1963. The original staging and the original script, now much amended, but a lovely first exposure to professional musical theatre.)

R31 you can see that here.

The re-creation of Gene Kelly's icon title number performance in the stage version of "Singin' in the Rain."

icon=iconic

Another one from Sunset Boulevard that blew me away: after Norma does her "I'm ready for my close-up" speech at the very end, she steps forward and sings a few bars from "With One Look" as a huge scrim drops down, and a huge close-up of a young, beautiful, smiling Gloria Swanson seems to blossom forth behind her, to emphasize the difference between the pathetic hag she has become and the glorious and vivacious star she once was.

You can see it at the link at 4:50.

The greatest tragedy is that Carol Burnett never got to play Norma Desmond her over-the-top way in the musical in the early 90s. They should have let her do it for just one special night, and had Harvey Korman play Max (both of them could sing well enough for the roles).

J'adore Carol Burnett but she "hasn't got the range" to sing Norma.

I concur with both the South Pacific Overture and the Horses in Shogun, the Musical. Both stunning effects that I can never forget. Another is the simple moment in the beginning of the second act of Titanic, when all the First Class Passengers are arguing about being asked to leave their cabins, and suddenly a tea cart starts slowly moving across the stage as everyone stops and stares at it. So simple and ominous.

[quote]J'adore Carol Burnett but she "hasn't got the range" to sing Norma.

And Glenn Close did?

Carol Burnett has a bigger range than Glenn.

Carol Burnett is a terrible singer!

Going back and seeing her TV show and how terrible most of it was and seeing her dramatic roles on TV and in film I've come to the conclusion that Carol Burnett has to be of the most overrated talents in American show business.

And I used to think she was wonderful.

A rare oldie was Maureen Silliman standing center stage at the end of Act I of Is There Life After High School singing the bittersweet Diary of a Homecoming Queen. The exciting effect of a remembered football field filled with screaming kids was created with just lights and music and her vocal.

The tilting/spilling out of the house in the revival of AN INSPECTOR CALLS was pretty amazing.

"Sunset" had the actresses playing Norma at the end, not Gloria Swanson

One of the most impressive moments ever was a sort of reverse coup - "Presents for Mrs. Rogers" in "Will Rogers Follies". A huge, spectacular (and amazingly costumed) Ziegfeld Follies number which stops in mid-song as the Depression hits. Crew members come onstage, take back all the costumes of the 20+ showgirls and the set disappears back to a grey cement wall. One of my favorite theater moments of all time.

Another from the Met--the recent "From the House of the Dead" had a moment where what seemed to be a ton of scrap paper crashed down onto the stage to begin a scene, the clearing of which became the tedious work given the prisoners. And, on a much tackier level, that reveal of the set for the riddle scene in Turandot, where the entire golden monstrosity is suddenly hit with light, and it becomes visible like a slow-motion explosion.

Some Coups are in the script or score and take little high tech stage craft to pull off. The ending of Dialogues of the Carmelites is a perfect example. The nuns walk upstage one by one followed by the whoosh of the guillotine. With each swipe, there is one less voice until one lone voice gets cut off. All it takes is a simple sound effect, but it is chilling.

Yes!--one of my favorites, r51.

R51 Brilliant!

That chandelier falling in Phantom was such a creaky, slow fall that it was laughable. As was the show.

I second the arrival of the angel at the end of the first part of the Angels in America. Riveting theater.

The ends of Act I and Act II of "An Octoroon" @ Soho Rep. Back wall collapses to reveal a brand new room covered in cotton balls. When the back wall fell in Act II the cotton balls blew out into the audience. Stunning in Soho Rep's tiny space.

Hear hear, R57. That's the kind of Coup de Theatre I'm talking about. Cocks!

[quote] The SOUTH PACIFIC revival at Lincoln Center. To the dramatic chords of Bali Hai, the stage floor rolls back to reveal the entire 30-piece orchestra. We'll probably never see that again.

When R26 wrote this 5 years ago, I'll bet he never knew how prophetic his words were

The Act 1 finale of Sunday in the Park with George - I've seen three productions and all were stunningly effective.

R57 Nice!

The city fire department is in charge of safety in Broadway theaters. The chandelier at the Majestic is capable of coming down much faster but FDNY won't allow it. It did come down a little quicker in London. But the theater in Las Vegas was brand new and built to accommodate the production with lots of special safety features built in and authorities there allowed it come down in a rush, as originally intended.

So not quite a coup de theatre, is it, R62?

There was a shitty musical called Amazing Grace that had a wonderful shipwreck. Actors were on wires; so, it was pretty amazing when they were swept overboard.

When I emerged from the "sea," nude, like Botticelli's Venus in "By Jove!" at the Majestic Theatre in 1933. It was my Broadway debut. The audience was in awe the moment they first laid their eyes on me and they would be in awe forevermore!

The chandelier in POTO was laughable, but I thought the boat scene with the fog and candelabras was impressive for its time.

OP, I bet the Efferdent fizz is just as exciting as it was in 1996 when you popped in those tablets for the first time to clean your dentures .

From Peter Sellars' original production of "Nixon in China," which I saw at BAM in 1987:

-Air Force One descending straight down from the flies, like the god coming out of the machine--and then the Nixons emerge from it and wave

-The end of Act One, where at the exact moment of Nixon and Chou En-Lai's toast to one another at the banquet (a moment made famous when it was the photograph on the cover of Newsweek), the action freezes for a full minute as flash bulbs go off wildly to John Adams's crashing chords

Aw, Helen at r65, tell 'em the truth.

Everyone knows that in "By Jove!" you actually played Third Gorgon--and you didn't even need the make-up!

Another vote for the two big costume changes in Dreamgirls. Those girls dancing upstage singing, the drop of the mylar curtain, and their immediate reappearance through it wearing completely different outfits was so unexpected and amazing. And the tight spotlight during I Am Changing that leads into the simple pulling of the scarf at the neck to turn a day look into an evening, singing in the club, look was fantastic.

The other one that I saw that was great was the Javert jumping to his death scene in Les Mis. So effective having the bridge railing on the stage and then having it fly up into the air as he "falls."

War Horse had its moments and, as others have mentioned, the chandelier in Phantom was as pathetic as the entire show. What an overrated piece of crap.