Heartwarming (theatre)



""So come down now,

Remove your mask, you see;

All you gotta do is ask me.

I'll give you all the love life allows

All you gotta do is ask me..."

Desi, Passing Strange"

Sometimes Theatre can really make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And some productions are even too heartwarming to be folderized:


 * Angels in America
 * Cyrano De Bergerac
 * Evita
 * Fiddler On the Roof
 * In the Heights
 * Les Misérables
 * Me and My Dick
 * Man of La Mancha
 * Next to Normal
 * Passing Strange
 * The Phantom of the Opera
 * Rent
 * Shrek
 * Spring Awakening
 * A Very Potter Musical
 * Wicked
 * William Shakespeare
 * A Year With Frog and Toad

Avenue Q

 * Despite not finding his purpose in life, the end song "For Now" in Avenue Q gets to this troper. Perhaps not heartwarming in a conventional sense, but still very sweet and wonderful and life-affirming in its own way.
 * Very heartwarming, in this troper's opinion. "The Money Song," too, just because 'charity will get you out of your self-absorbed nonsense and help you find REAL purpose' is probably the best lesson an adult Sesame Street could give.
 * For this troper, it was "There's A Fine, Fine Line" that got him. The actress's delivery was so powerful, how could it not? For such a funny musical, it certainly had its fair shares of Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

Beauty and The Beast
"Maurice: No matter what the pain we've come this far. I pray that you remain exactly as you are. This really is a case of father knowing best.
 * The song "No Matter What" from the Beauty and The Beast musical.

Belle': And daughter too.

Maurice: You're never strange.

Belle: Don't ever change.

Both: You're all I've got no matter what..."


 * And the transformation at the end, where Belle thinks the Beast is dead, and he transforms back into his human form. The special effects also make it a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Cirque Du Soleil

 * The final scene of the Cirque Du Soleil show KOOZA,
 * Another Cirque one: KA, where the Court Jester comforts the Twin Brother by teaching him shadow puppets. All the Scenery Porn is admittedly awesome, but this simple scene is arguably the most effective in the show.

Hairspray

 * "You're Timeless To Me" from Hairspray. A very funny and sweet ode to still loving the one you're with after all these years. "You're fat and old, but baby boring you aint!" just makes me smile.
 * For this troper, to be more specific, my favorite part of the song is a spoken line between verses when Wilbur says, "Baby, dance with me!" If you think back to one of Edna's lines from Welcome to the 60's, when she says, "Tracy, it's been years since someone's asked me to dance," the line takes a whole new meaning.

Into the Woods
"Safe at home with our beautiful prize, just the few of us..."
 * "No One Is Alone" in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, where the characters sing about how sometimes people leave and you have to make your own decisions, but you're still not alone.
 * Similarly, "No More".
 * At the end, when Red Riding Hood and Jack ask the Baker if they can come live with him now, he tells them no. The two children both look upset, until the Baker finally gives in and says, "Yes! Yes, of course you can live with me!"
 * The Baker and the Baker's Wife's duet of "It Takes Two", where the Baker's Wife has realized that her husband can change, and the Baker realizes he needs his wife more than he ever knew.

Legally Blonde The Musical

 * Legally Blonde The Musical - The song "Legally Blonde Remix" in its entirety. Where to begin? First we get Vivienne admitting that she's wrong and making up with Elle, which was great. Elle decides to be herself in her truly awesome pink suit. Then Paulette gets her Irish Step Dancing UPS Man - It Makes Sense in Context, I swear! Then Brooke fires Callahan and hires Elle... That scene is one moment of heartwarming after another!
 * Then of course there's the finale - particularly Elle's . So cute!

Rodgers and Hammerstein

 * The song "Boys and Girls like You and Me", sung by the King and Queen, from the Rodgers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella has been known to elicit "awww"s from both audience and cast members.
 * "Do I love you because you're beautiful/Or are you beautiful, because I love you?"
 * "I may never come down to earth again..."

Seussical

 * The You Are Not Alone moment between Horton and JoJo during the song "Alone in the Universe".
 * Gertrude listing off the tortures she has endured in a way that clearly implies that she would've gladly gone through more if it would help Horton.
 * The song "Solla Sollew." All of it, but especially the last part. After describing Solla Sollew in terms akin to heaven or paradise, the singers conclude that in reality they can find it, and "on the day I do, troubles will be through, and I'll be home with you." Being home with your loved ones is all the paradise they need. You really have to listen to this one, here.

Spamalot

 * The end of Spamalot. Yeah, I know.
 * Your Mileage May Vary, but this Troper thought that scene with Lancelot and the Prince became this with the "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" line.
 * Oh yes, definitely. And
 * "Well, yes, but... Patsy's family."

Other
"Judith: And I believed them, too."
 * The caretaker's speech in The Mystery Plays.
 * Misha by Adam Pettle.
 * Belinsky's monologue on the meaning of art and literature in the first Coast of Utopia play, Voyage. Billy Crudup (who played Belinsky in the New York production) got a very deserved Tony for the role.
 * Though this crosses over into commercial territory, this troper always wells up at "this commercial", which aired after 9/11 to encourage people to come back to New York.
 * There's something very wonderfully bone-chilling about the full-voiced finale to Hair, "Let the Sun Shine In."
 * The entire conclusion to Coram Boy. In the play, Aaron is finally united with Also, never mind  Sure, it's not how the book ends, but if you honestly care after sitting in that theatre for two and a half hours and aren't in tears... I feel sorry for you.
 * Basically the entire ending of Equivocation, but especially Judith's monologue about her father's death, and especially especially her Meaningful Echo of her father's comment about "stories that little girls tell to themselves when they think no one is listening."

"Jan: I came to ask you, will you come with me?
 * The ending of Karel Capek's RUR. "Life will not perish!"
 * The end of Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll, when Jan, about to leave England for what is probably the last time, finally gets up the courage to ask out Esme.

Esme: Yes.

Jan: To Prague.

Esme: Of course. Yes. Of course."


 * A rather sad example of heartwarming: the end of Francis Poulenc's opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. The nuns are being led to the guillotine, and are being executed one by one. Sister Constance, the youngest of the nuns and last in line, is soon left alone, and it is her turn. Just then, Sister Blanche appears out of the crowd and walks to the scaffold, meaning that Constance and Blanche will die together, just as Constance had fervently hoped.
 * I don't remember much about the book, but the stage version of Lord of the Flies had one for me, in the third act. Piggy has spent the entire play being, for all intents and purposes, an annoying know it all, or just plain useless at times. However, after his glasses get stolen, he tries his best to face up to the more savage tribe, and remind them who they were before they came to the island.
 * The ending of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. After the very touching song "Happiness," after everyone else leaves the stage, out of everyone in the cast, it's Lucy - the one who always believes the world is ending when Chuck does something right - who faces Charlie Brown and speaks those very words that make up the title of the show.
 * Starlight Express has the song "There's Me", sung by C.B to Dinah. The fact that C.B cares so much about Dinah and can't bear to see her so heartbroken is probably one of the sweeter things in the musical.
 * The last ten minutes of the 1992 musical adaptation of The Secret Garden. First there's the Tear Jerker "How Could I Ever Know?" where Archibald Craven comes to understand that he can still love his deceased wife without obsessing over her. His reaction to seeing his sickly son Colin running and playing in the garden with Mary is moving enough, but his response when she more or less asks if she's going to be sent away for doing everything she was told not to do is even moreso: "Mary Lennox, for as long as you shall have us, we are yours, Colin and I. And this is your home. And this, my lovely child, is your garden."
 * It may just be the production this troper saw, but at the end of The Master Singers of Nurenberg by Richard Wagner, Sixtus Beckmesser, Designated Villain, Dogged Nice Guy, Magnificent Bastard turned Butt Monkey, had absolutely failed at a song and got laughed off. He pulled his lute back to his bench and simply sat there, looking miserable for about seven minutes or so as Walther sang it properly, looking back at him occassionally, before taking his glasses off, just looking down for about five minutes more... ... ...and then, at the end, when a cameraman (seen before, but paid not much attention to -- Chekhovs Camera Man) brings the camera in, one of the masters taps him on the shoulder, giving him his hat and leading him along to a chair. It wasn't much, no, but after being loathed by more-or-less everyone, Beckmesser just up and hugged the guy. This troper openly awwed.
 * South Pacific's Finale Ultimo. Just...that finale. Nellie promises Amil's children that she'll look after them, because she loves them, and then singing with them. And the second time she forgets the words, there's Amil, alive and well. This troper always gets a good feeling when she listens to it.
 * Green Day's American Idiot. This troper was torn between tears and "awwww!"
 * "Iolanthe, thou livest?" near the end of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Iolanthe". The Lord Chancellor learns that his wife (who he thought dead but actually was a fairy banished for marrying a mortal) is alive. I get misty-eyed each time.
 * How could this one be so far down?: "Don't let Tinkerbell die! CLAP! CLAP IF YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES!" Cue thunderous applause from everyone in the audience.
 * Sunday in The Park With George: "We will always belong together."
 * The climax of Beethoven's Fidelio: a happy ending well and truly earned.
 * How is Ragtime not mentioned here? So many, many moments, particularly Sarah's part of "New Music", "Wheels of a Dream", "Gliding," "Buffalo Nickel Photoplay inc."  "Our Children", "Make Them Hear You", and the most heartwarming of all,   accompanied by a swirl of beautiful music. It was so incredibly touching that it brought tears to this Troper's eyes.
 * We're Gonna Be Ok from Vanities: A New Musical, which unfortunately became a Cut Song after the show's Pasadena Playhouse run.
 * There are quite a few in the musical Top Hat (that is the 2011 stage version of the romantic-comedy film) but one early on is after Jerry tap dances loudly in a hotel room and apologises to the woman from the room below who complains (Dale, who is the love interest), he decides to help her fall asleep with a gentle sand dance. In the film it's not played as sweet and only as fun but in the stage version they certainly do take it seriously and it was so adorable.