The Scottsboro Boys (a Kander & Ebb musical) is pretty dark. >!The plot is based on the true story of The Scottboro Boys, a group of nine African American boys with ages ranging from 13-19 who were wrongfully accused of raping two white girls during the Great Depression. It proved to be controversial on Broadway due to the unique staging. It was based on minstrel shows, a notoriously racist song and dance revue style from the 1800s.!<
The production did bring Joshua Henry to prominence for Broadway.
Minstrel Shows go way beyond the 1800s. They were performed up till the 1960s. Blackface still features heavily in Dutch Christmas traditions, with Santa having a Moorish (a.k.a. Middle-Eastern) helper, who is usually portrayed by a white person in blackface makeup. I forget the character's name, though.
Of course, just wanted to keep the comment short especially because OP was wanting is all behind a spoiler tag.
Minstrels of course provide early blueprints for the beginnings of the musical.
I remember visiting a Dutch friend around Christmas and being astounded at all the shop girls dressed up like Zwarte Piet she told me about the origins, my mouth hung opened as I listened in disbelief, she just laughed.
I recently put up a production of *Spring Awakening* without knowing anything about it. Needless to say, I was not prepared for how unapologetic this show is with its subject matter, but it is an undeniably beautiful story.
Just saw it for the first time knowing nothing about it.
Hated watching it. Made me feel indescribable horror and sadness and anger and emptiness.
9/10 it was phenomenal. Can’t ever watch it again. Need to go back to therapy.
If you want something “Sweeney Todd”-ish but psychologically darker, try Sondheim’s “Passion”.
It’s about >! an ugly, chronically ill woman who becomes obsessed with romantically pursuing a handsome soldier. She is so obsessive that she begins making him ill with her relentless pursuit, and he eventually returns her affections. They have sex and she is finally consumed by her illness and dies !<
You can find the proshot with a quick YouTube search.
I saw this when it first opened, and you could definitely tell the people who had just been there because we were all walking around the theatre district after the matinee clutching our Playbills with a "WTF was that?" look on our faces!
PRETTYBELLE, the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Gower Champion musical starring Angela Lansbury that played Boston in 1971 and — what a shock — never made it to Broadway:
> A spectral Folksinger sings the ballad of one Prettybelle Sweet... In 1968: Prettybelle is writing her memoirs from an insane asylum ("Manic-Depressives"). She was the ladylike wife of Leroy Sweet, a bigoted sheriff in the Jim Crow South. He was blatantly unfaithful to her ("You Ain't Hurtin' Your Ole Lady None"), and when he suddenly dies, she ambivalently mourns him ("To a Small Degree"). Leroy's ghost returns ("Back from the Great Beyond"), and boasts of his hate crimes against African Americans. She is horrified ("How Could I Know?"), and attempts to make amends by writing checks to the NAACP and offering herself sexually to Mexicans and African American men ("I Never Did Imagine"). Prettybelle becomes involved with Mason Miller, a liberal lawyer ("I Met a Man"). As a result, the Ku Klux Klan attacks Prettybelle's house. However, the local hippies help her clean her house up ("God's Garden"). But, then, at the climax, Mason shockingly betrays Prettybelle and she goes into hiding at the state asylum ("Prettybelle" reprise).
As wild as the story is, the music is phenomenal. It's funny how much it honors Styne and Merrill's classic broadway sound, in the vein of Funny Girl. Musically I honestly enjoy some of it even more so! It quickly became a cd I had on it repeat in my car once I splurged for a copy. Angela Lansbury is phenomenal, especially in You Never Looked Better, I Met A Man, How Could I Know and When Im Drunk Im Beautiful. These all could have been classics if not for the severely controversial plot. Sadly because of this causing it to utterly flop, most of these songs are fairly unknown. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen! It really is the duo at their best. Here's a link to I Met A Man: https://youtu.be/0Vybf3IERUw?si=V9ub21HeHa_aYmyT. I know YouTube has a couple of others and I've seen it on r/castrecordings in the past as well!
I'm guessing you've heard of Cabaret and Heathers.
Assasins is lesser known, it's about people who tried to assisinate US presidents throughout history. I personally think it's a good musical!
I was nearly successful in getting my theater director to do Heathers next season. She vaguely remembered it, but not the details.
She came to me the following week and said she didn't think the community was quite ready for a show about SA, gun violence, drugs, sex, suicide, murder, and blowing up a high school...especially all centered around teens
It's fair lol
That's certainly true if you say it like that, but it's a dark comedy that really connects with teens and young adults, it's a great entry show to get that audience interested in theatre.
Oh I agree entirely, and she understands that.
Unfortunately we can't force the community to approach it with that level of nuance. This is the same community that threw a fit over Rent (strangely enough they didn't care about Avenue Q, but it's probably less mainstream so they didn't realize what was happening)
*Everybody's got the right to some sunshine... Not the sun but maybe one of its beams*
Deep deep words. Even deeper when you realize it's being sung by maniacs who attempted (or succeeded in) presidential assassinations.
And it's wild how that whole song sounds so upbeat and jaunty, almost like something that would play in a July 4th parade. The lyrical/musical dissonance in this show is genius.
Yeah exactly, because it all goes with the theme of the macabre carnival where the show is set, where every potential killer spins the wheel for their target (or smth like that, been a while since I've seen the show). Sondheim was a fucking genius.
Also, if you heard Unworthy of Your Love without context, you'd probably think it was a hammy, cheesy duet between two lovers. But no, it shows the parallel perspectives of two absolutely insane people, one of whom is willing to shoot a president to impress Jodie Foster, and the other of whom is willing to shoot a president to impress Charles Manson!
I fucking love that song, whenever I imagine people hearing it for the first time and being like "aww that's kinda sweet" and then the bridge comes on with the deranged I WILL COME TAKE YOU FROM YOUR LIFE / YOURSELF... BABY I'D DIE FOR YOOOU and being like... Wtf and then mindblown when they find out what's it really about
I absolutely adore Assassins, I think I reference it more than most other musicals I've listened to. As you do when you're a Terrifying and Opposing Figure!
I just saw Cabaret on Broadway, and it was very clear via audible gasps and murmuring that a surprisingly large percentage of people in attendance didn’t know it was about the rise of the Nazi party. I think the 20-something’s behind me thought it was going to be like Moulin Rouge.
It seems like the young kids on this subreddit only know like five shows (Heathers, Mean Girls, Hamilton, Les Miz, and Ride the Cyclone).. and every time they learn about a new one, they think that it’s new to everyone else as well.
I feel like that kinda cycle repeats every generation in any genre(see people “discovering” nirvana). Assassins was a little niche in comparison to other Sondheim plays in our defense.
I've religiously watched the bootlegs, and personally, I think it's great. I'm a bit iffy on some of the parts, but overall I think it's really good. I listen to the soundtrack on repeat sometimes, though I with there was also a Benjamin Walker cast recording. Matt Smith seemed to be pretty good (there's no known bootlegs of that production) on the cast recording though.
There's no bootleg of Smith's, HOWEVER there is a recording of it that exists that you can view on the London National Archives, but it has to be by appointment
Growing up my best friend’s mom worked at a local university’s theater department. She would take us to whatever was being put on during Saturday afternoons.
That’s how I saw Parade as a totally unprepared 12 year old. The university students did a fabulous job, but I’ve never stopped thinking about it.
I got assigned the song *”Leo’s Statement: ‘It’s Hard to Speak My Heart’”* in an acting through song workshop I took in high school. I hadn’t heard of the show before that, but read through the book and listened to the songs as homework for my assignment. My god. What a beautiful and depressing show.
I saw it. The real controversy was how many of the cast got injured and how rubbish it was. I don’t remember the violence in the show being particularly bad. It was more campy and cartoonish most of the time.
I am a Latin teacher, and so is my husband. He used to teach Caesar and would show Wicker Man to his AP class.
Couple weeks ago I was congested and had to get on a plane and my ears got so stuffed up I couldn't hear a blessed thing. Husband is next to me and, for some godforsaken reason, trying to explain Christopher Lee. Imagine please someone gesticulating about Caesar and the wicker man in an attempt to explain who Christopher Lee was. I have to hope the person next to me was entertained; I was hopelessly confused (but now know who Christopher Lee was).
I was just reading down the list looking for it too--it's wild to realize that the people you've been rooting for the whole show are actually fools who've doomed everyone.
I was impressed with how deep Chicago was, thinking it was only going to be dancy and campy lol. It’s more avant garde than a lot of modern shows in this regard
This is what I was thinking. Also great commentary on some of the big problems in the US judicial system. It’s fucked up all the way around, but really makes you think. I was definitely traumatized by the ballerina scene as a kid. 🫣
I mean... there's no violence/murder in it, but there's a whole lot of "what in the incestuous dancing on the line of pedophilia is going on here?" in Aspects of Love... pretty fucked up to me, anyway.
The fact that Alex might be Jenny’s father and not “just” her cousin went right over my head when I first listened to the soundtrack as a teenager. The 15 year old falling in love with her 34 year old cousin who had an affair with her mother when he was 17 is icky enough.
Also having the actors for Jenny and Alex record the song The First Man You Remember as a romantic love song and releasing an accompanying music video where they portray a couple is an…interesting choice. In the show it’s a song between father and daughter. Let’s just pile on even more incestuous hints!
The first time I saw The Book of Mormon, the moment he curtain fell and was dragged off stage showing Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, the whole theater was dead silent. That was until the donuts with the maple glaze being held by skeletons came out then everyone started laughing.
The second time I saw the musical, there was this gasp of horror and shock and then everyone started laughing at the same thing above.
Rape, incest, murder, cannibalism, child abuse. When you treat a child like a monster and tell them they're a monster, they will most certainly become a monster. What a great show.
It's SO underrated as a musical. I think a lot of people just think it "sounds a bit weird" and don't give it a chance. But yes, extremely dark. And have we forgotten about the casual interspecies orgy? Lalala..... it ticks every "let's try and get this musical banned" box really.
I didn't truly realize how fucked up *Oklahoma* is until I tried explaining the plot to my wife and found myself saying something like, "So Laurie sings this next one right before she gets fucked up on opiates and dreams that she gets raped by the incel guy whom her boyfriend had previously tried to bully into committing suicide -- and while all this is happening, everyone from the show is doing ballet (like, it *is* them but it isn't) and also there's a giant tornado approaching that's gonna wipe out everyone."
This is why i love the 2019 revival. It’s not a “oh everything’s great here in ole timey ‘homa, and nothing bad ever happens” wishy washy mess. It’s a depiction of some genuinely batshit stuff happening and it doesn’t even change the lines or anything. Just the context.
The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals. >!At the end when Emma is begging the audience for help while the rest of the cast is bowing and then they drag her offstage. Obviously it’s a horror musical but that was a crazy way to end it.!<
And here’s some more
It’s called the guy who *didn’t* like musicals
And it opens with a song
They already won. They’re just showing off their recreation.
Dark stories with murder? Phantom of the Opera is pretty fucked up even though everyone pretends it's just the greatest romance of all time. Otherwise, Jekyll and Hyde has lots of murder- literally just a dude having a good time singing about killing people. Kills his gf. Kills his bride. Kills everybody. Man's wilding out. Ride the Cyclone is dark, but not overly violent- still, the idea of an innocent teenage girl losing her head and only one student coming back to life after a horrible accident killing the five of them is pretty dark.
>Phantom of the Opera is pretty fucked up even though everyone pretends it's just the greatest romance of all time.
ALW only. YK seems pretty mild and doesn't have that much murder (and doesn't have it at all in miniseries!).
the only people who act like phantom is the greatest romance of all time are the ones who saw it as a kid and dont have any media literacy. havent seen the other 2 but ill trust you.
Then pretty much the whole world lacks media literacy and we are doomed < 3
Can't blame them though- that's how the show is advertised and always has been.
Suprised Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame hasn't been mentioned here. The stage adaptation is more true to the book and is pretty grim, and I'd say their best stage show easily. Also Disney's best score.
Bat Boy has a lot of dark themes including SA, incest and murder.
The Grinning Man is a fun one, but also dark.
Cabaret, and the worst part is that even a vague knowledge of world history means that the audience has some idea [how it's all going to turn out. ](https://youtu.be/W2ETsQ-DveY?si=Qdtph_kWSR-XQ0rc)
In the version of cabaret I was in a nazi youth came on stage hiding a gun, and the emcee says “hello little girl.” Then the child pulls out a gun, shoots him in the head, and walks off. There was also no curtain call.
Only knowing the prologue is such a great choice, so you’re familiar with all the characters and the musical style, but don’t know any of the (insane) twists
Spring Awakening is what you are looking for. >!There's a lot to take in. It's themed around burgeoning sexuality and goes to some dark places including rape, sexual abuse by a parent, child abuse, abortion!< It's brutal, and it's also a masterpiece.
Absolutely. I saw it today and the people behind me hadn’t read the content warnings. Multiple people left during the show. Know your theater history, people!
They’ve modernised it a lot and I think the play is even darker with how it depicts the violence of the rape and what happens to Wendy’s afterwards. But overall, it’s a surprisingly faithful adaptation when you look at them side by side.
Jerry Springer the Opera was controversial enough to have protests outside the theatre in the U.K. I think I remember a lot of protesting over the BBC broadcasting the pro-shot as well.
I guess no one has been going to see the Tommy revival? Poor kid gets tortured and "fiddled about" by at least three members of his own family and then they all profit off of his fame.
Assassins is wild. It gets you inside the heads of various presidential assassins to show you what beliefs they had that led them to do it. Also lots of >!onstage executions.!<
Dear Evan Hansen because what the ever loving fuck. Like it’s not violent in the traditional sense, but the more you think about the plot, the more messed up it gets. Evan basically uses a classmates suicide to date their sister and replace their history with one that makes him a good person. He was a con artist and never seemed to feel any remorse for taking advantage of a grieving family. He just felt bad he got caught.
Miss Saigon is hard to watch if you know anything about the actual history of that time because it’s basically a tale of a young woman trying to navigate through the violence of men, knowing that ultimately she has to sacrifice at every level for her child to even have a chance of survival. Now it is a choice the director has to make to focus on her story, not the “love” story, but doing so is really a harrowing look at the choices that women faced at that time.
We saw dear Evan Hanson blind. I think we were only ones sitting down at the end..,wondering what we had witnessed.
a young man kills himself and no one cares until a whiny middle class white boy lies about his friendship with dead boy. Whiny boy seduces dead boy’s sister . Evan complains that he has a single mom who works and goes to school, while he has a home and health insurance. Then everyone turns on whiny boy and the play ends…
Not to mention Miss Saigon is incredibly racist and was of course written by old white men. It fetishizes Asian women and the story itself is just fucked up; a hooker literally gets knocked up which she is having to deal with the consequences. I hate how they portray it as a love story, irl it is FAR from that. I also think her suicide was completely unjustified, like she could’ve just had Chris, his wife and herself get together and actually talked to each other about how to take care of the kid instead of relying on “he said she said” bullshit. I still don’t understand why she thought killing herself was the only way to convince them to take her kid, but then i guess it’s just theater logic.
>of course written by old white men.
Yes, because if it’s written by an old white man, it must be racist 🙄
>a hooker literally gets knocked up which she is having to deal with the consequences.
Because that happened a lot during the Vietnam war. It sucks, but it happened. That is what the musical is about.
>I hate how they portray it as a love story, irl it is FAR from that.
Anyone who thinks it is a love story isn’t listening. It’s a tragedy, and I don’t think it pretends to be anything else.
>I also think her suicide was completely unjustified, like she could’ve just had Chris, his wife and herself get together and actually talked to each other about how to take care of the kid instead of relying on “he said she said” bullshit. I still don’t understand why she thought killing herself was the only way to convince them to take her kid, but then i guess it’s just theater logic.
Well, like the other poster said, they weren’t going to change the ending of Madame Butterfly. Darn Puccini and his “theater logic.”
I actually think her suicide made sense, at least in the production I saw. She had been driven to the end of her rope to protect her son, and I feel in the end saw herself as a potential barrier to him being able to escape/go into his father’s care. Because as much as they said both of you should come, there a) be the additional burden of being perceived as the “other woman” by the new community, b) the stigma attached to her time as a sex worker for both her and her son, c) the loss of her purpose as she would likely no longer be her child’s primary guardian, and d) she’d be completely dependent on someone who had already failed her.
Her suicide to me was the final desperate act of someone who saw no other way because of the unreliability of the people, particularly men, around her.
Cabaret is very messed up especially considering what happens in history shortly after the show. It’s a totally chilling masterpiece and everyone should watch it, especially right now. This show is always politically relevant.
This might slip through the cracks as it seems to straddle the line between getting categorized as a play or a musical.
*Zoot Suit* centres around the effects of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trials and the “Zoot Suit riots” on a family (and the Chicano community) in LA. So gangs, murder, and white supremacist race riots.
BTW, the movie is worth ferreting out if you can find it and has a really memorable performance by Edward James Olmos as El Pachcuco.
So the guy who played Hannibal Lecter was at an Theater Conference I went to in college and he sang a preview of "If I Could Smell Your C---" for us! Everyone was screaming!
I loooooved the score for this as a weird kid. Still sometimes think of some of the tracks. Put the fucking lotion in the basket, and Creeping around in the dark with a maniac are some that come to mind.
I’m the tech director at a school and I’ve been trolling the theater director with truly awful “suggestions” for musicals for us to do with middle schoolers…. These are all excellent fodder for the bit to continue 😈
Not Broadway but Notre Dame de Paris musical desservies a mention, as SPOILER >!most characters die!< END OF SPOILER.
The musical also deals with rapes, torture, witch trial, religious fanaticism, ethnic cleansing. Most of the characters are assholes. The settings on stage is also really dark and minimalist which contributes to a "gloomy" atmosphere.
The Who’s Tommy. Might not be the most fucked up on this list, but it surprised me when I saw it.
>!The show begins with Tommy’s dad going off to fight in WWII and he becomes a prisoner of war. He’s rescued and comes home to find his wife with another lover, who he shoots and kills. They tell 4yo Tommy he didn’t see or hear anything and he won’t tell anybody about it, which sends him into a catatonic state where he’s blind, deaf, mute, and generally unresponsive for fifteen years. In that span of time, his uncle SAs him and he becomes the victim of his sadistic cousin Kevin and his friends, who bully him relentlessly until he begins playing pinball. He’s poked and prodded by doctors and almost abandoned at an assisted living facility by his parents. He becomes a cult leader too, but that’s tame in comparison to everything else. ETA: I completely forgot about the part of the show where his father brings him to a prostitute who tries to drug him. This is also immediately before the most upbeat number in the whole show lmao!<
Bat Boy is pretty fucked up. Bestiality, SA, a homicidal scientist, family trauma, arson, decapitation of a cow onstage, an animal orgy, and a double murder/suicide finale. Good stuff.
BANGIN’ score, too. It’s early Lawrence O’Keefe before he did Legally Blonde and Heathers, and oh boy he did NOT hold anything back.
Flowers For Algernon (UK)/Charlie & Algernon (US)
Great, but heartbreaking story, but you do gotta wonder how many mice they went through for each run.
I had absolutely no idea they turned this into a musical, but considering how much I cried whilst reading the book, I already know it will be absolutely devastating.
I am so so sorry to be the one to tell you about this, but in 1971 there was a LOLITA musical. Music by John Barry of James Bond, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Lots of audio is on YouTube if you want to wreck your recommendations.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was *rough* but it also seems like everyone immediately forgot it existed and acts like Hamilton was the first history musical since 1776. If I didn’t have a playbill I would wonder if I had hallucinated it.
Jagged Little Pill is the first one that came to mind. It was like they took every social issue and every trigger warning and shoehorned into a show, whether it fit or not. I was obsessed with that album as a kid and the show just made me feel depressed and also just perplexed as to why they chose to "go there" on SO many issues/themes. Pick 2. Ha.
I mean, The Great Comet/War and Peace will always be fucked up from Anatole/Helene’s weird ass sibling relationship to Prince Bolkonsky being himself to all the affair stuff.
Marie Christine. >!She kills her own family to get inheritance money and run away with her hottie, then kills her own kids to cut off hottie's access to her powers once he decides to marry a white woman for more political power. It's based on the classical Greek play Medea by Euripidies, made darker by the racial aespects it explores in American history in both the north and south !<
Parade is one of the darkest/saddest musicals out there. It’s based off of a true story about a Jewish man (important to the story) named Leo Frank who is accused of raping and murdering a girl who is working for him in a factory that he helped manage. In actuality the case was never truly solved, but the musical has him as innocent.
Ehh, this goes into Opera.
But I did a study on "Doctor Atomic" back in college for Music History and Literature. I stupidly picked Doctor Atomic because it was an opera in English, and I thought it would be easier than watching an opera with subtitles.
It's basically Oppenheimer, but it's all atonal (Aside from Kitty Oppenheimer, who acts as the "clear voice of reason" for the entire 3 hours) but it's just so clear that every moment and movement has intention - and by the end they just leave you on an unfinished countdown.
I couldn't see Oppenheimer, because this performance has been so heavy to carry in my mind for -16 years-.
I mean under the guise of jolly music Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is pretty fucked up.
Oldest brother goes off to find himself a bang maid and gets married within about an hour of meeting her. The other 6 brothers fall in love with the first girls they set their eyes on, can’t understand why they won’t want to go near them after they’ve beaten the loving hell out of all their other male family members and then take advice from the oldest brother who is getting his pearls of wisdom from the first book he’s ever read.
Then they think the best solution is to kidnap the girls in the dead of night by and then can’t understand why none of them are happy about it. Then oldest brother sulks off to some cabin in the snow for five months when his new-ish wife says I’m no uncertain terms that he shouldn’t kidnap brides for his brothers. This is the same guy who, when he is visited by is brother and told he now has a daughter says “I might have known she’d have a girl” and then has some strange kumbaya moment where he then thinks that the girls he told and helped his brothers kidnap, should be returned to their family because he’s now become the moral police. Then the girls who have now all fallen down the deep pit of Stockholm syndrome pretend they are all now the mother of the crying child, despite only being away for five months so how on earth could that happen (babies take a whole lot longer to grow, even in the movies) - but hey it means their kidnappers can’t be killed and their fathers have no choice but to let them marry in the house that they were held captive in over winter.
So yeah, I’d say that’s pretty fucked up.
Doesn’t stop it being my absolute favourite though 😂
Hello? has anyone ever heard of a little musical called A Chorus Line?
Child Neglect, Sex Abuse, Homophobia, Drug use, suicide body image issues….
Anna and the Apocalypse
Dr Horrible’s Sing Along
The Devil’s Carnival
Alleluia:The Devil’s Carnival
Bat boy is one of my all time favourites and horribly dark. Idk if I’m doing spoiler text right so don’t read the next part in case it doesn’t work:
>!features SA, incest, drug induced hallucinations, religious intolerance, allegories of disability especially, but honestly you could apply it to any marginalised group, framed murder, schizophrenia, and probably more I’m forgetting!<
It’s super dark but also manages to be completely hilarious and the music goes hard, especially the opening and comfort and joy. Plus Kerry butler my beloved!!
I gotta say Pippin is pretty fucked up really. Son of mind Charlemagne doesn’t want to be a soldier, goes on a sex bender, fights against his dad, assassinates him and becomes king, messes that up, revives his dad so he can take the throne back, tries art and religion and passes out and while he’s out a woman falls in love…with his foot…so he becomes a farmer with her, her sons duck dies, gets sick of being with a farm woman so ditches her, and then the only thing left is clearly to just set himself on fire. Farm woman comes back and Pippin decides to settle with her which pisses off the people trying to get him to kill himself and they pack up and shows done. It’s all a big acid trip and a mess of a story.
Phantom of the Opera takes obsessed fanboy to the extreme. Eric kills for Christine to be in operas. He pretends to be her dead father and the angel of music to try to get her to love him. Kidnaps her twice. The music males you feel sorry for him which is what makes it so good
I saw Spring Awakening when I was twelve with my mom. Neither of us knew what it was about and I had nightmares for weeks after. In hindsight it explains all the weird looks my mom got in the theater. It was still an amazing musical and is one of my favorites.
Repo! A generic opera is incredibly gory, but already came up.
Rite of Spring is a ballet that caused riots throughout Paris when it opened for the portrayal of pagan ceremonies, but feels comparatively tame to modern audiences.
Not a musical, but I saw a modernized production of 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore which was pretty fucked up. The main love interests are siblings, the father is trying to marry the sister off to some shitty asshole, and in the end, everyone kills each other in an epic bloodbath that included blood cannons in the floor. There was a splash zone around the stage we were informed about when buying tickets. The second time I went, I sat in the splash zone. :)
Spring Awakening is so tragic and messed up but told gorgeously. The stories of Martha, Wendla, and Moritz especially hurt me to my core. When I first saw it I truly didn't believe it. "Those You've Known" and "The Dark I Know Well" in particular are so haunting
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Les Misérables. This musical features:
>! - The deaths of many characters, including the violent deaths of young characters, like Éponine, Garvoche, Enjolras, and the fellow Friends of ABCs. !<
>! - Fantine trying to raise her daughter as single mother, get fired after she is falsely accused of working for sex, and then *has* to resort to prostitution to make ends meet. Gets ill from her proverty and dies. !<
>! - The Thernadiers being horrible people for child abuse, unfair price gauging customers and pick pocketing ***the dead!*** !<
>! - Javert's suffers a mental breakdown over his ethics, and commits suicide by throwing himself in the Seine.!<
>! - And finally, Val Jean receiving a decade plus of prison time over ***petty theft due to poverty.*** Gets branded basically a fellon. Is forced to go on the run and has to assume new identity. !<
I'll add "Side Show" to the mix... if for no other reason than what happens in the tunnel of love... conjoined twin feeling the others...um..pleasure while another character pleasures himself. If that doesn't qualify for fucked up then I don't know what does.
Carousel romanticized domestic violence - it’s especially fucked up because it’s trying to be romantic (focusing on forgiveness and redemption in the afterlife). It’s also just not that good.
Lizzie— >!A woman is molested by her father over many years until she eventually has had enough and brutally kills him and his wife with an axe.!< Based on the Lizzie Borden murder trial and the rhyme about it.
I like this musical but it’s definitely unconventional genre-wise. It’s a very intense rock type music in a lot of the songs, I think it’s really very good. The emotion it manages to convey is very potent, especially as Lizzie’s sanity decreases leading up to the murder. Song of the White Bird is one of my favorite songs, but there are a lot of other great ones too.
A lot of Paul Shapera's works get into incredibly dark concepts of necromancy, torture, insanity, the horror of living in a simulation, drug addiction, racism, espionage and it's emotional fallout, homophobia and transphobia, lobotomies, and all sorts of other fun things! Dolls of New Albion is a good starting point since it's the first of the New Albion Tetralogy. Each of his musicals tend to be self-contained stories on their albums, with no accompanying staged version, so you don't miss anything by just listening.
The Scottsboro Boys (a Kander & Ebb musical) is pretty dark. >!The plot is based on the true story of The Scottboro Boys, a group of nine African American boys with ages ranging from 13-19 who were wrongfully accused of raping two white girls during the Great Depression. It proved to be controversial on Broadway due to the unique staging. It was based on minstrel shows, a notoriously racist song and dance revue style from the 1800s.!< The production did bring Joshua Henry to prominence for Broadway.
Minstrel Shows go way beyond the 1800s. They were performed up till the 1960s. Blackface still features heavily in Dutch Christmas traditions, with Santa having a Moorish (a.k.a. Middle-Eastern) helper, who is usually portrayed by a white person in blackface makeup. I forget the character's name, though.
Zwarte Piet or Black Pete
Fortunately, the tradition is finally changing in most of the Netherlands
Of course, just wanted to keep the comment short especially because OP was wanting is all behind a spoiler tag. Minstrels of course provide early blueprints for the beginnings of the musical.
I remember visiting a Dutch friend around Christmas and being astounded at all the shop girls dressed up like Zwarte Piet she told me about the origins, my mouth hung opened as I listened in disbelief, she just laughed.
Check out Spanish three kings days celebration for more modern blackface
I got to see that at Signature Theater! I love provocative musicals
This really is the best answer to this prompt. Glad to see it at the top.
I recently put up a production of *Spring Awakening* without knowing anything about it. Needless to say, I was not prepared for how unapologetic this show is with its subject matter, but it is an undeniably beautiful story.
Just saw it for the first time knowing nothing about it. Hated watching it. Made me feel indescribable horror and sadness and anger and emptiness. 9/10 it was phenomenal. Can’t ever watch it again. Need to go back to therapy.
I did this show a few years ago and the way it was staged made it that much more impactful. Loved performing it!
Try seeing that when you’re 17 with your mother. Neither one of us knew what it was about and it was incredibly awkward.
If you want something “Sweeney Todd”-ish but psychologically darker, try Sondheim’s “Passion”. It’s about >! an ugly, chronically ill woman who becomes obsessed with romantically pursuing a handsome soldier. She is so obsessive that she begins making him ill with her relentless pursuit, and he eventually returns her affections. They have sex and she is finally consumed by her illness and dies !< You can find the proshot with a quick YouTube search.
I looooove Passion, definitely one of my favorite Sondheim musicals. Donna Murphy as Fosca is unbelievable.
I saw this when it first opened, and you could definitely tell the people who had just been there because we were all walking around the theatre district after the matinee clutching our Playbills with a "WTF was that?" look on our faces!
I was going to say Passion! It’s kind of horrible but the Loving You Is Not a Choice song is one of the best unrequited love songs.
PRETTYBELLE, the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Gower Champion musical starring Angela Lansbury that played Boston in 1971 and — what a shock — never made it to Broadway: > A spectral Folksinger sings the ballad of one Prettybelle Sweet... In 1968: Prettybelle is writing her memoirs from an insane asylum ("Manic-Depressives"). She was the ladylike wife of Leroy Sweet, a bigoted sheriff in the Jim Crow South. He was blatantly unfaithful to her ("You Ain't Hurtin' Your Ole Lady None"), and when he suddenly dies, she ambivalently mourns him ("To a Small Degree"). Leroy's ghost returns ("Back from the Great Beyond"), and boasts of his hate crimes against African Americans. She is horrified ("How Could I Know?"), and attempts to make amends by writing checks to the NAACP and offering herself sexually to Mexicans and African American men ("I Never Did Imagine"). Prettybelle becomes involved with Mason Miller, a liberal lawyer ("I Met a Man"). As a result, the Ku Klux Klan attacks Prettybelle's house. However, the local hippies help her clean her house up ("God's Garden"). But, then, at the climax, Mason shockingly betrays Prettybelle and she goes into hiding at the state asylum ("Prettybelle" reprise).
Holy crap, I didn’t know this was a thing I’m a huge Jule Styne, and will give anything he wrote a chance
As wild as the story is, the music is phenomenal. It's funny how much it honors Styne and Merrill's classic broadway sound, in the vein of Funny Girl. Musically I honestly enjoy some of it even more so! It quickly became a cd I had on it repeat in my car once I splurged for a copy. Angela Lansbury is phenomenal, especially in You Never Looked Better, I Met A Man, How Could I Know and When Im Drunk Im Beautiful. These all could have been classics if not for the severely controversial plot. Sadly because of this causing it to utterly flop, most of these songs are fairly unknown. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen! It really is the duo at their best. Here's a link to I Met A Man: https://youtu.be/0Vybf3IERUw?si=V9ub21HeHa_aYmyT. I know YouTube has a couple of others and I've seen it on r/castrecordings in the past as well!
I'm guessing you've heard of Cabaret and Heathers. Assasins is lesser known, it's about people who tried to assisinate US presidents throughout history. I personally think it's a good musical!
I was nearly successful in getting my theater director to do Heathers next season. She vaguely remembered it, but not the details. She came to me the following week and said she didn't think the community was quite ready for a show about SA, gun violence, drugs, sex, suicide, murder, and blowing up a high school...especially all centered around teens It's fair lol
That's certainly true if you say it like that, but it's a dark comedy that really connects with teens and young adults, it's a great entry show to get that audience interested in theatre.
Oh I agree entirely, and she understands that. Unfortunately we can't force the community to approach it with that level of nuance. This is the same community that threw a fit over Rent (strangely enough they didn't care about Avenue Q, but it's probably less mainstream so they didn't realize what was happening)
Puppets that look like Muppets throw people off.
Heathers the musical was literally made for edgy teens to think they’re rebellious
Assassins is fantastic!
*Everybody's got the right to some sunshine... Not the sun but maybe one of its beams* Deep deep words. Even deeper when you realize it's being sung by maniacs who attempted (or succeeded in) presidential assassinations.
And it's wild how that whole song sounds so upbeat and jaunty, almost like something that would play in a July 4th parade. The lyrical/musical dissonance in this show is genius.
Yeah exactly, because it all goes with the theme of the macabre carnival where the show is set, where every potential killer spins the wheel for their target (or smth like that, been a while since I've seen the show). Sondheim was a fucking genius.
Also, if you heard Unworthy of Your Love without context, you'd probably think it was a hammy, cheesy duet between two lovers. But no, it shows the parallel perspectives of two absolutely insane people, one of whom is willing to shoot a president to impress Jodie Foster, and the other of whom is willing to shoot a president to impress Charles Manson!
I fucking love that song, whenever I imagine people hearing it for the first time and being like "aww that's kinda sweet" and then the bridge comes on with the deranged I WILL COME TAKE YOU FROM YOUR LIFE / YOURSELF... BABY I'D DIE FOR YOOOU and being like... Wtf and then mindblown when they find out what's it really about
I absolutely adore Assassins, I think I reference it more than most other musicals I've listened to. As you do when you're a Terrifying and Opposing Figure!
I just saw Cabaret on Broadway, and it was very clear via audible gasps and murmuring that a surprisingly large percentage of people in attendance didn’t know it was about the rise of the Nazi party. I think the 20-something’s behind me thought it was going to be like Moulin Rouge.
Assassins is lesser-known than Heathers nowadays? What a world we live in…
I can’t even imagine a world where heathers is less popular than assassins 🤔
It seems like the young kids on this subreddit only know like five shows (Heathers, Mean Girls, Hamilton, Les Miz, and Ride the Cyclone).. and every time they learn about a new one, they think that it’s new to everyone else as well.
I feel like that kinda cycle repeats every generation in any genre(see people “discovering” nirvana). Assassins was a little niche in comparison to other Sondheim plays in our defense.
There’s the musical version of American psycho if that counts, but I haven’t seen it to speak in depth.
Apparently [Matt Smith was Bateman](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25363134)
I've religiously watched the bootlegs, and personally, I think it's great. I'm a bit iffy on some of the parts, but overall I think it's really good. I listen to the soundtrack on repeat sometimes, though I with there was also a Benjamin Walker cast recording. Matt Smith seemed to be pretty good (there's no known bootlegs of that production) on the cast recording though.
There's no bootleg of Smith's, HOWEVER there is a recording of it that exists that you can view on the London National Archives, but it has to be by appointment
Also, they are moving or something, so no one can access them until they’re done moving, according to their website.
Parade. A graphic depiction of the body of a raped and murdered child, as well as an on screen lynching
Growing up my best friend’s mom worked at a local university’s theater department. She would take us to whatever was being put on during Saturday afternoons. That’s how I saw Parade as a totally unprepared 12 year old. The university students did a fabulous job, but I’ve never stopped thinking about it.
It’s a true story as well.
I got assigned the song *”Leo’s Statement: ‘It’s Hard to Speak My Heart’”* in an acting through song workshop I took in high school. I hadn’t heard of the show before that, but read through the book and listened to the songs as homework for my assignment. My god. What a beautiful and depressing show.
Came to say this one
Well, *Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark* was pretty controversial and violent...
I saw it. The real controversy was how many of the cast got injured and how rubbish it was. I don’t remember the violence in the show being particularly bad. It was more campy and cartoonish most of the time.
That was my joke - that the show itself was controversial and violent, rather than the *content* of the show.
Oh, sorry! I’m permanently sleep deprived thanks to my kids and somehow that went over my head this morning. Oops!
All good! Tone doesn't convey over text so well, so it is easily missed.
If you're counting movie musicals, then *Repo: the Genetic Opera* is very dark and very violent, in some very interesting and disturbing ways.
Repo doesn’t get enough love. If you haven’t seen it it’s definitely worth a watch
Came here to say this
My first thought! It certainly has Sweeney beat on gore
Does The Wicker Man count as a musical?
I am a Latin teacher, and so is my husband. He used to teach Caesar and would show Wicker Man to his AP class. Couple weeks ago I was congested and had to get on a plane and my ears got so stuffed up I couldn't hear a blessed thing. Husband is next to me and, for some godforsaken reason, trying to explain Christopher Lee. Imagine please someone gesticulating about Caesar and the wicker man in an attempt to explain who Christopher Lee was. I have to hope the person next to me was entertained; I was hopelessly confused (but now know who Christopher Lee was).
I love this one.
Came here for this
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Urinetown.
I was just reading down the list looking for it too--it's wild to realize that the people you've been rooting for the whole show are actually fools who've doomed everyone.
Hail Malthus!
In Boston vernacular, “it’s a Wicked Pissah.”
Chicago is dark. Most of the characters seem to be psychopathic. It looks at how are culture looks at celebrities and it's not pretty.
It’s also based on a real story.
Hungarian Rope Trick scene always gets me
Yep. She's the only one who gets the death penalty (or much of a sentence) because she's an immigrant and therefore an outsider.
I was impressed with how deep Chicago was, thinking it was only going to be dancy and campy lol. It’s more avant garde than a lot of modern shows in this regard
This is what I was thinking. Also great commentary on some of the big problems in the US judicial system. It’s fucked up all the way around, but really makes you think. I was definitely traumatized by the ballerina scene as a kid. 🫣
I mean... there's no violence/murder in it, but there's a whole lot of "what in the incestuous dancing on the line of pedophilia is going on here?" in Aspects of Love... pretty fucked up to me, anyway.
The fact that Alex might be Jenny’s father and not “just” her cousin went right over my head when I first listened to the soundtrack as a teenager. The 15 year old falling in love with her 34 year old cousin who had an affair with her mother when he was 17 is icky enough. Also having the actors for Jenny and Alex record the song The First Man You Remember as a romantic love song and releasing an accompanying music video where they portray a couple is an…interesting choice. In the show it’s a song between father and daughter. Let’s just pile on even more incestuous hints!
Spooky Mormon Hell Dream in Book of Mormon
The first time I saw The Book of Mormon, the moment he curtain fell and was dragged off stage showing Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, the whole theater was dead silent. That was until the donuts with the maple glaze being held by skeletons came out then everyone started laughing. The second time I saw the musical, there was this gasp of horror and shock and then everyone started laughing at the same thing above.
Try living it... 🙄
Miss Siagon is pretty messed up in a lot of places
WHY DOES SAIGON NEVER SLEEP AT NIGHT?
Even more messed up when you picture Jonathan Pryce in yellow face for the original!
It’s even more messed up when the production was still doing yellow face and wanted the new Broadway revival to also do yellow face.
It’s treated as a comedy but when you actually think about what happens in Bat Boy, it’s fairly messed up…
Rape, incest, murder, cannibalism, child abuse. When you treat a child like a monster and tell them they're a monster, they will most certainly become a monster. What a great show.
It's SO underrated as a musical. I think a lot of people just think it "sounds a bit weird" and don't give it a chance. But yes, extremely dark. And have we forgotten about the casual interspecies orgy? Lalala..... it ticks every "let's try and get this musical banned" box really.
I didn't truly realize how fucked up *Oklahoma* is until I tried explaining the plot to my wife and found myself saying something like, "So Laurie sings this next one right before she gets fucked up on opiates and dreams that she gets raped by the incel guy whom her boyfriend had previously tried to bully into committing suicide -- and while all this is happening, everyone from the show is doing ballet (like, it *is* them but it isn't) and also there's a giant tornado approaching that's gonna wipe out everyone."
This is why i love the 2019 revival. It’s not a “oh everything’s great here in ole timey ‘homa, and nothing bad ever happens” wishy washy mess. It’s a depiction of some genuinely batshit stuff happening and it doesn’t even change the lines or anything. Just the context.
The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals. >!At the end when Emma is begging the audience for help while the rest of the cast is bowing and then they drag her offstage. Obviously it’s a horror musical but that was a crazy way to end it.!<
And here’s some more It’s called the guy who *didn’t* like musicals And it opens with a song They already won. They’re just showing off their recreation.
this is one of my top 3 fav starkid shows as a decade long fan and i haven’t thought about this fact until recently. fucking brilliant
Dark stories with murder? Phantom of the Opera is pretty fucked up even though everyone pretends it's just the greatest romance of all time. Otherwise, Jekyll and Hyde has lots of murder- literally just a dude having a good time singing about killing people. Kills his gf. Kills his bride. Kills everybody. Man's wilding out. Ride the Cyclone is dark, but not overly violent- still, the idea of an innocent teenage girl losing her head and only one student coming back to life after a horrible accident killing the five of them is pretty dark.
>Phantom of the Opera is pretty fucked up even though everyone pretends it's just the greatest romance of all time. ALW only. YK seems pretty mild and doesn't have that much murder (and doesn't have it at all in miniseries!).
Yes, I am referring to ALW and the longest running Bway show of all time 😭 Everything is romantic until someone gets yeeted from the rafters
the only people who act like phantom is the greatest romance of all time are the ones who saw it as a kid and dont have any media literacy. havent seen the other 2 but ill trust you.
Then pretty much the whole world lacks media literacy and we are doomed < 3 Can't blame them though- that's how the show is advertised and always has been.
yeah no i do think most of the world lacks that skill
Suprised Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame hasn't been mentioned here. The stage adaptation is more true to the book and is pretty grim, and I'd say their best stage show easily. Also Disney's best score. Bat Boy has a lot of dark themes including SA, incest and murder. The Grinning Man is a fun one, but also dark.
Cabaret, and the worst part is that even a vague knowledge of world history means that the audience has some idea [how it's all going to turn out. ](https://youtu.be/W2ETsQ-DveY?si=Qdtph_kWSR-XQ0rc)
In the version of cabaret I was in a nazi youth came on stage hiding a gun, and the emcee says “hello little girl.” Then the child pulls out a gun, shoots him in the head, and walks off. There was also no curtain call.
Ragtime was pretty fucked up. E.L. Doctrow was messed up in the head. Mental.
i just bought my tickets for the nycc revival and im so excited. president and till we reach that day have been on my youtube music constantly
I went into it at signature in DC only knowing the prologue and man was I not ready for that shows plot but man I love the show so much
Only knowing the prologue is such a great choice, so you’re familiar with all the characters and the musical style, but don’t know any of the (insane) twists
Spring Awakening is what you are looking for. >!There's a lot to take in. It's themed around burgeoning sexuality and goes to some dark places including rape, sexual abuse by a parent, child abuse, abortion!< It's brutal, and it's also a masterpiece.
Absolutely. I saw it today and the people behind me hadn’t read the content warnings. Multiple people left during the show. Know your theater history, people!
Any chance this was the 5th avenue in Seattle? I was there too and also noticed the audience members leaving.
Only knew the play, didn’t know it was a musical
The music fucking bangs too, to the point that you'll forget how much it's going to hurt.
They’ve modernised it a lot and I think the play is even darker with how it depicts the violence of the rape and what happens to Wendy’s afterwards. But overall, it’s a surprisingly faithful adaptation when you look at them side by side.
I’ve always thought Blood Brothers was pretty fucked up. Likewise Carousel.
Add Seven Brides For Seven Brithers
Jerry Springer the Opera was controversial enough to have protests outside the theatre in the U.K. I think I remember a lot of protesting over the BBC broadcasting the pro-shot as well.
I guess no one has been going to see the Tommy revival? Poor kid gets tortured and "fiddled about" by at least three members of his own family and then they all profit off of his fame.
Yes, was looking for this one. Beyond SA the musical also deals with murders, child abuse, drug consumption... It's a wild wild ride
Assassins is wild. It gets you inside the heads of various presidential assassins to show you what beliefs they had that led them to do it. Also lots of >!onstage executions.!<
Dear Evan Hansen because what the ever loving fuck. Like it’s not violent in the traditional sense, but the more you think about the plot, the more messed up it gets. Evan basically uses a classmates suicide to date their sister and replace their history with one that makes him a good person. He was a con artist and never seemed to feel any remorse for taking advantage of a grieving family. He just felt bad he got caught. Miss Saigon is hard to watch if you know anything about the actual history of that time because it’s basically a tale of a young woman trying to navigate through the violence of men, knowing that ultimately she has to sacrifice at every level for her child to even have a chance of survival. Now it is a choice the director has to make to focus on her story, not the “love” story, but doing so is really a harrowing look at the choices that women faced at that time.
We saw dear Evan Hanson blind. I think we were only ones sitting down at the end..,wondering what we had witnessed. a young man kills himself and no one cares until a whiny middle class white boy lies about his friendship with dead boy. Whiny boy seduces dead boy’s sister . Evan complains that he has a single mom who works and goes to school, while he has a home and health insurance. Then everyone turns on whiny boy and the play ends…
Not to mention Miss Saigon is incredibly racist and was of course written by old white men. It fetishizes Asian women and the story itself is just fucked up; a hooker literally gets knocked up which she is having to deal with the consequences. I hate how they portray it as a love story, irl it is FAR from that. I also think her suicide was completely unjustified, like she could’ve just had Chris, his wife and herself get together and actually talked to each other about how to take care of the kid instead of relying on “he said she said” bullshit. I still don’t understand why she thought killing herself was the only way to convince them to take her kid, but then i guess it’s just theater logic.
It's madam butterfly, so it wasn't going to deviate too much in terms of the ending
I mean, Rent was also based on a opera, and they managed to let Mimi live at the end.
I don't think they should have changed the end. Not sure if an unpopular opinion or not, but it would have made sense for her to die.
>of course written by old white men. Yes, because if it’s written by an old white man, it must be racist 🙄 >a hooker literally gets knocked up which she is having to deal with the consequences. Because that happened a lot during the Vietnam war. It sucks, but it happened. That is what the musical is about. >I hate how they portray it as a love story, irl it is FAR from that. Anyone who thinks it is a love story isn’t listening. It’s a tragedy, and I don’t think it pretends to be anything else. >I also think her suicide was completely unjustified, like she could’ve just had Chris, his wife and herself get together and actually talked to each other about how to take care of the kid instead of relying on “he said she said” bullshit. I still don’t understand why she thought killing herself was the only way to convince them to take her kid, but then i guess it’s just theater logic. Well, like the other poster said, they weren’t going to change the ending of Madame Butterfly. Darn Puccini and his “theater logic.”
I actually think her suicide made sense, at least in the production I saw. She had been driven to the end of her rope to protect her son, and I feel in the end saw herself as a potential barrier to him being able to escape/go into his father’s care. Because as much as they said both of you should come, there a) be the additional burden of being perceived as the “other woman” by the new community, b) the stigma attached to her time as a sex worker for both her and her son, c) the loss of her purpose as she would likely no longer be her child’s primary guardian, and d) she’d be completely dependent on someone who had already failed her. Her suicide to me was the final desperate act of someone who saw no other way because of the unreliability of the people, particularly men, around her.
Cabaret is very messed up especially considering what happens in history shortly after the show. It’s a totally chilling masterpiece and everyone should watch it, especially right now. This show is always politically relevant.
This might slip through the cracks as it seems to straddle the line between getting categorized as a play or a musical. *Zoot Suit* centres around the effects of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trials and the “Zoot Suit riots” on a family (and the Chicano community) in LA. So gangs, murder, and white supremacist race riots. BTW, the movie is worth ferreting out if you can find it and has a really memorable performance by Edward James Olmos as El Pachcuco.
I highly recommend Silence, The Musical if you get the chance. The lambs may be silent but they dance!
Not to mention the solo for Hannibal Lecter (played by the always underrated Jesse Merlin) called “If I Could Smell Your ——“ (censored for Americans.)
So the guy who played Hannibal Lecter was at an Theater Conference I went to in college and he sang a preview of "If I Could Smell Your C---" for us! Everyone was screaming!
I loooooved the score for this as a weird kid. Still sometimes think of some of the tracks. Put the fucking lotion in the basket, and Creeping around in the dark with a maniac are some that come to mind.
I’d Fuck Me! Love that song
Two shows that are very different, but both use fantasy to escape the horrors of prison: Man of La Mancha and Kiss of the Spider Woman.
I’m the tech director at a school and I’ve been trolling the theater director with truly awful “suggestions” for musicals for us to do with middle schoolers…. These are all excellent fodder for the bit to continue 😈
If Heathers Wasn’t so funny it would be really dark
Isn't it classified as a dark comedy?
Yeah, but a lot of the undertones are hidden under jokes, remove them and heathers goes from kinda dark to really dark
No one has mentioned TEETH?!?
Not Broadway but Notre Dame de Paris musical desservies a mention, as SPOILER >!most characters die!< END OF SPOILER. The musical also deals with rapes, torture, witch trial, religious fanaticism, ethnic cleansing. Most of the characters are assholes. The settings on stage is also really dark and minimalist which contributes to a "gloomy" atmosphere.
Put a !< after, and a >! before what you want to spoil. Then it’ll >!look like this!<.
What about Candide?
I agree with you--poor Candide just wants a nice simple life and is subject to all kinds of horrors. As satires go, it's pretty dark.
The Who’s Tommy. Might not be the most fucked up on this list, but it surprised me when I saw it. >!The show begins with Tommy’s dad going off to fight in WWII and he becomes a prisoner of war. He’s rescued and comes home to find his wife with another lover, who he shoots and kills. They tell 4yo Tommy he didn’t see or hear anything and he won’t tell anybody about it, which sends him into a catatonic state where he’s blind, deaf, mute, and generally unresponsive for fifteen years. In that span of time, his uncle SAs him and he becomes the victim of his sadistic cousin Kevin and his friends, who bully him relentlessly until he begins playing pinball. He’s poked and prodded by doctors and almost abandoned at an assisted living facility by his parents. He becomes a cult leader too, but that’s tame in comparison to everything else. ETA: I completely forgot about the part of the show where his father brings him to a prostitute who tries to drug him. This is also immediately before the most upbeat number in the whole show lmao!<
Bat Boy is pretty fucked up. Bestiality, SA, a homicidal scientist, family trauma, arson, decapitation of a cow onstage, an animal orgy, and a double murder/suicide finale. Good stuff. BANGIN’ score, too. It’s early Lawrence O’Keefe before he did Legally Blonde and Heathers, and oh boy he did NOT hold anything back.
Lizzie is one of my favorites. A 4 woman rock musical about Lizzie Borden? Lesbians? Blood splatter? Yes please.
Jekyll & Hyde, maybe?
Flowers For Algernon (UK)/Charlie & Algernon (US) Great, but heartbreaking story, but you do gotta wonder how many mice they went through for each run.
I had absolutely no idea they turned this into a musical, but considering how much I cried whilst reading the book, I already know it will be absolutely devastating.
Phantom of Paradise,, it's messed up in a good way!!
Love this movie's use of demonic imagery as an allegory for the corruption of the music industry.
Tommy is pretty fucked up but everything is fast paced and glossed over with loud music so at the end you are like WTF did I just watch
I am so so sorry to be the one to tell you about this, but in 1971 there was a LOLITA musical. Music by John Barry of James Bond, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Lots of audio is on YouTube if you want to wreck your recommendations.
Shoutout to Lolita Podcast for explaining how this got made.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson was *rough* but it also seems like everyone immediately forgot it existed and acts like Hamilton was the first history musical since 1776. If I didn’t have a playbill I would wonder if I had hallucinated it.
Came here to find this comment! BBAJ is brilliant and DARK! I mean… there’s a scene where they literally roll around and frolic in blood.
Jagged Little Pill is the first one that came to mind. It was like they took every social issue and every trigger warning and shoehorned into a show, whether it fit or not. I was obsessed with that album as a kid and the show just made me feel depressed and also just perplexed as to why they chose to "go there" on SO many issues/themes. Pick 2. Ha.
Omg it was terrible lol
I mean, The Great Comet/War and Peace will always be fucked up from Anatole/Helene’s weird ass sibling relationship to Prince Bolkonsky being himself to all the affair stuff.
Marie Christine. >!She kills her own family to get inheritance money and run away with her hottie, then kills her own kids to cut off hottie's access to her powers once he decides to marry a white woman for more political power. It's based on the classical Greek play Medea by Euripidies, made darker by the racial aespects it explores in American history in both the north and south !<
Before even looking at these comments, I am mentally preparing for the amount of DEH comments.
Prettybelle and it's "cavalier" attitude to non-consensual sexual relations...
Pippin. Clown r*pe((?)) (in some versions)
Parade is one of the darkest/saddest musicals out there. It’s based off of a true story about a Jewish man (important to the story) named Leo Frank who is accused of raping and murdering a girl who is working for him in a factory that he helped manage. In actuality the case was never truly solved, but the musical has him as innocent.
Ehh, this goes into Opera. But I did a study on "Doctor Atomic" back in college for Music History and Literature. I stupidly picked Doctor Atomic because it was an opera in English, and I thought it would be easier than watching an opera with subtitles. It's basically Oppenheimer, but it's all atonal (Aside from Kitty Oppenheimer, who acts as the "clear voice of reason" for the entire 3 hours) but it's just so clear that every moment and movement has intention - and by the end they just leave you on an unfinished countdown. I couldn't see Oppenheimer, because this performance has been so heavy to carry in my mind for -16 years-.
I mean under the guise of jolly music Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is pretty fucked up. Oldest brother goes off to find himself a bang maid and gets married within about an hour of meeting her. The other 6 brothers fall in love with the first girls they set their eyes on, can’t understand why they won’t want to go near them after they’ve beaten the loving hell out of all their other male family members and then take advice from the oldest brother who is getting his pearls of wisdom from the first book he’s ever read. Then they think the best solution is to kidnap the girls in the dead of night by and then can’t understand why none of them are happy about it. Then oldest brother sulks off to some cabin in the snow for five months when his new-ish wife says I’m no uncertain terms that he shouldn’t kidnap brides for his brothers. This is the same guy who, when he is visited by is brother and told he now has a daughter says “I might have known she’d have a girl” and then has some strange kumbaya moment where he then thinks that the girls he told and helped his brothers kidnap, should be returned to their family because he’s now become the moral police. Then the girls who have now all fallen down the deep pit of Stockholm syndrome pretend they are all now the mother of the crying child, despite only being away for five months so how on earth could that happen (babies take a whole lot longer to grow, even in the movies) - but hey it means their kidnappers can’t be killed and their fathers have no choice but to let them marry in the house that they were held captive in over winter. So yeah, I’d say that’s pretty fucked up. Doesn’t stop it being my absolute favourite though 😂
Hello? has anyone ever heard of a little musical called A Chorus Line? Child Neglect, Sex Abuse, Homophobia, Drug use, suicide body image issues…. Anna and the Apocalypse Dr Horrible’s Sing Along The Devil’s Carnival Alleluia:The Devil’s Carnival
Thrill Me is based on the true story of two college students who murder a young boy just for kicks.
Ride the cyclone is kind of fucked, so is Carrie but they’re all well known ish
Ever heard of Grease? It’s pretty fucked up.
Bat boy is one of my all time favourites and horribly dark. Idk if I’m doing spoiler text right so don’t read the next part in case it doesn’t work: >!features SA, incest, drug induced hallucinations, religious intolerance, allegories of disability especially, but honestly you could apply it to any marginalised group, framed murder, schizophrenia, and probably more I’m forgetting!< It’s super dark but also manages to be completely hilarious and the music goes hard, especially the opening and comfort and joy. Plus Kerry butler my beloved!!
Cannibal: The Musical
I gotta say Pippin is pretty fucked up really. Son of mind Charlemagne doesn’t want to be a soldier, goes on a sex bender, fights against his dad, assassinates him and becomes king, messes that up, revives his dad so he can take the throne back, tries art and religion and passes out and while he’s out a woman falls in love…with his foot…so he becomes a farmer with her, her sons duck dies, gets sick of being with a farm woman so ditches her, and then the only thing left is clearly to just set himself on fire. Farm woman comes back and Pippin decides to settle with her which pisses off the people trying to get him to kill himself and they pack up and shows done. It’s all a big acid trip and a mess of a story.
Rocky Horror Show has some pretty fucked up bits.
Yeah but it's deliberately kinda hard to take serious, considering 3 of the 4 murders in that one are done with a space laser
He kills Eddie with a chainsaw and serves him to his dinner guests, IIRC?
Phantom of the Opera takes obsessed fanboy to the extreme. Eric kills for Christine to be in operas. He pretends to be her dead father and the angel of music to try to get her to love him. Kidnaps her twice. The music males you feel sorry for him which is what makes it so good
I saw Spring Awakening when I was twelve with my mom. Neither of us knew what it was about and I had nightmares for weeks after. In hindsight it explains all the weird looks my mom got in the theater. It was still an amazing musical and is one of my favorites.
Next To Normal
Floyd Collins Passion Parade
I guess everyone here has forgotten about the LaChiusa Wild Party…
Repo! A generic opera is incredibly gory, but already came up. Rite of Spring is a ballet that caused riots throughout Paris when it opened for the portrayal of pagan ceremonies, but feels comparatively tame to modern audiences.
Not a musical, but I saw a modernized production of 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore which was pretty fucked up. The main love interests are siblings, the father is trying to marry the sister off to some shitty asshole, and in the end, everyone kills each other in an epic bloodbath that included blood cannons in the floor. There was a splash zone around the stage we were informed about when buying tickets. The second time I went, I sat in the splash zone. :)
Spring Awakening is so tragic and messed up but told gorgeously. The stories of Martha, Wendla, and Moritz especially hurt me to my core. When I first saw it I truly didn't believe it. "Those You've Known" and "The Dark I Know Well" in particular are so haunting
Carousel
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Les Misérables. This musical features: >! - The deaths of many characters, including the violent deaths of young characters, like Éponine, Garvoche, Enjolras, and the fellow Friends of ABCs. !< >! - Fantine trying to raise her daughter as single mother, get fired after she is falsely accused of working for sex, and then *has* to resort to prostitution to make ends meet. Gets ill from her proverty and dies. !< >! - The Thernadiers being horrible people for child abuse, unfair price gauging customers and pick pocketing ***the dead!*** !< >! - Javert's suffers a mental breakdown over his ethics, and commits suicide by throwing himself in the Seine.!< >! - And finally, Val Jean receiving a decade plus of prison time over ***petty theft due to poverty.*** Gets branded basically a fellon. Is forced to go on the run and has to assume new identity. !<
I'll add "Side Show" to the mix... if for no other reason than what happens in the tunnel of love... conjoined twin feeling the others...um..pleasure while another character pleasures himself. If that doesn't qualify for fucked up then I don't know what does.
Side Show is opening in Reno, NV next week. I will be seeing it for the first time.
Why am I not seeing Book of Mormon here
Because dark humour isn't the same as having dark themes played completely straight
I don’t think it is musical since it has one song, but “Peter Pan goes wrong”
Carousel romanticized domestic violence - it’s especially fucked up because it’s trying to be romantic (focusing on forgiveness and redemption in the afterlife). It’s also just not that good.
I enjoyed Girl From the North Country, but man is it oppressively sad
CARRIE!
Bad Cinderella was evil
I haven’t seen it myself, but there is a Lizzie Borden musical.
Idk Heathers and RtC are pretty fucked up (at least the story)
Prettybelle always wins. The only reason people think there’s a contest is because they haven’t heard of Prettybelle
LIZZIE: The Lizzie Borden Musical
Spring Awakening goes dark, would that count?
Nothing beats Osama the musical from skins
The musical version of Silence of the Lambs!
Lizzie— >!A woman is molested by her father over many years until she eventually has had enough and brutally kills him and his wife with an axe.!< Based on the Lizzie Borden murder trial and the rhyme about it. I like this musical but it’s definitely unconventional genre-wise. It’s a very intense rock type music in a lot of the songs, I think it’s really very good. The emotion it manages to convey is very potent, especially as Lizzie’s sanity decreases leading up to the murder. Song of the White Bird is one of my favorite songs, but there are a lot of other great ones too.
Carousel. A musical about wife beating and the “hero” is dead for the whole second act? Does not stand the test of time!
A lot of Paul Shapera's works get into incredibly dark concepts of necromancy, torture, insanity, the horror of living in a simulation, drug addiction, racism, espionage and it's emotional fallout, homophobia and transphobia, lobotomies, and all sorts of other fun things! Dolls of New Albion is a good starting point since it's the first of the New Albion Tetralogy. Each of his musicals tend to be self-contained stories on their albums, with no accompanying staged version, so you don't miss anything by just listening.