History BetterThanItSounds / Theater

->''"[[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} A man is haunted by his father's ghost.]]\\
[[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet A boy and girl love while their families fight.]]\\
[[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} A Scottish king is murdered by his host.]]\\
[[Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream Two couples get lost on a summer night.]]\\
[[Theatre/RichardIII A hunchback murders all who block his way.]]\\
[[Theatre/JuliusCaesar A ruler's rivals plot against his life.]]\\
[[Theatre/HenryIV A fat man and a prince make rebels pay.]]\\
[[Theatre/{{Othello}} A noble Moor has doubts about his wife.]]\\
[[Theatre/HenryV An English king decides to conquer France.]]\\
[[Theatre/TwelfthNight A duke learns that his best friend is a she]].\\
[[Theatre/AsYouLikeIt A forest sets the scene for this romance.]]\\
[[Theatre/KingLear An old man and his daughters disagree.]]\\
[[Theatre/TitusAndronicus A Roman leader makes a big mistake.]]\\
[[Theatre/AntonyAndCleopatra A sexy queen is bitten by a snake.]]"''
-->--'''''[[http://pages.unibas.ch/shine/firstlinesonnet.html Shakespearean Sonnet]]''''', ''R.S. Gwynn''

Because TrueArtIsIncomprehensible.
----
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/SeventeenSeventySix]]'': An obnoxious lawyer, an emo farmer, a horny doctor and a bunch of middle-aged white men bitch about the heat and call each other names while trying to start a revolution. There are more sex jokes than you might expect. A ''lot'' more.
* ''[[spoiler:Film/FortySecondStreet]]'': A big-time director hires a random groupie in desperation. Luckily, said groupie just ''happens'' to have enough raw talent to make any MarySue jealous.
** Alternatively: Director should have flipping double casted the main female lead like any sensible director would!
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Ajax}}]]'': A guy goes nuts when a fallen hero's armor is given to someone else. Written by a pedophile.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ALittleNightMusic]]'': Rich Swedish people who are unhappy with their relationships end up in better relationships.
* ''[[spoiler:A Night In The Old Marketplace]]'': With the help of a statue and a drunk, a guilt-ridden Jewish comedian tries to resurrect a woman who committed suicide the day her parents forced her to marry a rich guy. The rich guy in the hero. Everyone sings lots of klezmer, and Music/TheyMightBeGiants show up for the finale to sing about dead people getting drunk.
* ''[[spoiler:Alice]]'': Schoolteacher uses alias to attempt to seduce his student. When that fails, he turns into a rabbit. That, too, fails, because she is more interested in discussing the life of [[Film/{{Freaks}} Johnny Eck]] with a drug-addicted larva and becoming royalty. Music by Music/TomWaits.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/AllsWellThatEndsWell]]'': To avoid bedding his wife, a JerkAss goes off to war alongside a DirtyCoward. His bride is determined to get pregnant by him, and sabotages a Florentine widow's reputation to attain this goal.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Amadeus}}]]'': An old man is still obsessed with his rival, decades after killing him.
* ''[[spoiler:Androcles and the Lion]]'': Married man's affair with PantomimeAnimal makes emperor get religion.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/AngelsInAmerica]]'': God hires Roy Cohn to represent him in a parental abandonment suit.
* ''[[spoiler:An Upside-Down Cancer Ribbon]]'': The author of the musical talks to the audience about the Dutch language, interrupts her own flashbacks of her learning the Dutch language, [[NoFourthWall and demolishes the fourth wall to smithereens.]] The Dutch language's finer grammatical aspects are anthropomorphized through a bunch of wacky characters. Hilarity (and education) ensue.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Arcadia}}]]'': Girl discovers thermodynamics, dies in a fire. MeanwhileInTheFuture, a lot of academics are wrong.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Assassins}}]]'': A bunch of emo losers try to kill a man.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/AvenueQ'']]: Twenty-something Muppets search for a purpose in life and extol the virtues of porn while living in a building run by a short black man played by a woman.
* ''[[spoiler:The Band]]'': A exploration of grief, what it means to grow up, and the life-long meaning, comfort and community that can be found in fandom, set to the music of Music/TakeThatBand.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville]]'': TheBarber is an AlmightyJanitor who helps a nobleman marry an orphaned girl, whose guardian is a customer of said barber.
* [[spoiler:''[[Creator/{{Aristophanes}} The Birds]]'']]: A guy persuades feathered friends to claim divinity. HilarityEnsues.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheBirthdayParty'']]: A boarding house occupant is told that it is his birthday even though it might not be. Two of his old friends show up to celebrate.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/BellsAreRinging'']]: A lazy writer enjoys a whirlwind affair with a beautiful mystery woman who seems to know all about him. He then finds out that she's his Mom.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/BeMoreChill'']]: Teenage boy eats Japanese computer in attempt to get a girl to notice him.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheBookOfMormon'']]: Two mormons are sent to foreign Uganda. HilarityEnsues.
** Alternatively: Americans start a Star Wars cult in Uganda. One of them gets a girlfriend out of it. The other one gets raped.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Cabaret}}]]'': People sing and dance suggestively while Nazis take over. The BetaCouple is a landlady and an elderly Jewish fruit vendor.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Camelot}}]]'': A French man destroys a utopian English government.
* [[spoiler:''Candide'']]: A really drawn-out [[StrawmanFallacy straw man argument]] about an obscure philosophical thesis.
* ''[[spoiler:Carmen Jones]]'': An African-American SettingUpdate of a classic French opera.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/CatOnAHotTinRoof'']]: Drunk refuses to have sex with his wife because he blames her for turning his dead best friend gay by having sex with him.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Cats}}'']]: Household pets from UncannyValley sing, dance, and poke the people sitting in the expensive seats.
** Alternatively: A book of children's poems is turned into an opera with an all-furry cast.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'']]: Five kids enter a {{Mad Artist}}-[[MadScientist Scientist's]] FalseUtopia and the undoings/'''possible deaths''' of the four who misbehave are cheered on by him and his surreal workforce. ''The show is on the Mad Artist-Scientist's side, and it's a musical.''
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Chess}}'']]: The Cold War boils down to a {{Jerkass}} facing an adulterer over a really old board game. The adulterer falls for the jerkass's manager.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Chicago}}'']]: A corrupt lawyer saves a couple of AssholeVictims from being hanged on stage.
* [[spoiler:Creator/CirqueDuSoleil]]: A circus specializing in explorations of aspects of Life, the Universe and Everything...with next to no dialogue. It's AllThereInTheManual!
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Alegria}}'']]: The bourgeoisie and proletariat battle for control of a kingdom via acrobatics.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheBeatlesLOVE'']]: ''Film/AcrossTheUniverse'' without all that distracting plot and dialogue.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Corteo}}'']]: The death of a clown.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{KOOZA}}'']]: Loser receives and opens unexpected package; HilarityEnsues.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/LaNouba'']]: A janitor opens a door and finds both idiots and love within.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Mystere}}'']]: Two babies search for their "loveys". A heckler doesn't just mock the actors.
** [[spoiler:''[[Theatre/{{O}} "O"]]'']]: Kidnapped man joins a passing parade upon/in a flooded stage.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Quidam}}'']]: Young girl learns the commonality of alienation.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Saltimbanco}}'']]: Humanity is boiled down to timid faceless people and mad gypsies.
** [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Varekai}}'']]: The untold aftermath of a famous air tragedy.
* ''[[spoiler:The Caretaker]]'': Homeless man is taken in by two brothers of dubious sanity, given handyman job. Refuses to believe he snores, blames black people.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Carousel}}'']]: {{Domestic Abuse}}r is given one last chance to redeem himself to his family. Result: "Failure!"
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors'']]: A tourist in a foreign city tries to pick up a hooker and gets bitch-slapped by the wife of his long-lost twin brother; he then falls in love with a woman who thinks she's his sister-in-law... in the end, the brothers learn that their mom is a nun and their dad is on death row, and everyone lives happily ever after.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Company}}]]'': A single guy hangs out with his married friends.
* [[spoiler:Theatre/{{Coriolanus}}]]: A soldier is hated by his own people but [[HoYay his enemy is obsessed with him]]. It doesn't end well.
* [[spoiler:Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac]]: An ugly man kills people and lusts after his cousin. Oh, and he writes a lot of poetry.
* ''[[spoiler:Literature/DaddyLongLegs]]'': Extremely wholesome musical about a young girl communicating with an older man that she addresses as Daddy, who pays for all her stuff and is in love with her.
* [[spoiler:Dancing At Lughnasa]]: Five poor sisters dance a lot, the youngest sister's son is snarky, the older brother murders a rooster and the son's estranged father tears the family apart.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/DearEvanHansen'']]: A teenager consoles a grieving family by making up complete bullshit about their deceased loved one.
* [[spoiler:Dearly Departed]]: A dysfunctional Southern family brings their neuroses to the surface after the death of the family patriarch. This is all played for laughs.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/DogSeesGod]]'': [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Charlie Brown]] and friends are teenagers in high school. Snoopy dies. [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse from there.]]
* [[spoiler:Theatre/DonGiovanni]]: A statue attempts to teach a sex pest the value of keeping it in his pants.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Drood}}]]'': A whiny writer dies midway through his final murder mystery. The guy who wrote "The Pina Colada Song" gets ahold of the story and turns it into a Broadway musical, forcing the audience to pick the ending.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheDrowsyChaperone]]'': A man sits in his apartment listening to a record of his favorite musical and complains about stuff.
** Or, a wedding falls apart and comes back together for no good reason, and then [[spoiler:[[BigLippedAlligatorMoment they all go to Rio]]]].
* ''[[spoiler: Film/TheDybbuk]]'': ''Romeo and Juliet'' meets ''The Exorcist.'' Alternatively: a young divinity student studies the wrong Jewish religious text. Tragedy ensues. (Was made into a classic Yiddish movie.)
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/EinsteinOnTheBeach]]'': People sing scales, numbers, and nonsense poetry (some of it written by an autistic teenager) while a man (or sometimes woman) dressed as Albert Einstein plays the violin. For 4 1/2 hours with no intermission.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Elisabeth}}]]'':
** Who would win: the Empress of Austria versus one random sexy [[TheGrimReaper Grim Reaper]]?
** Prince Rudolf's subplot: How to talk to your child about Death.
** Revolution subplot: Small, concerned group of Austrian citizens fail to change world.
** Lucheni's rationale: Man kills woman because she wants to die.
** TheProblemWithFightingDeath: The Musical.
* ''[[spoiler:Equivocation]]'':The bad guy wins, but Shakespeare makes fun of him.
* ''[[spoiler:Equus]]'': A sexually repressed teen murders horses, then a therapist reconsiders his job.
* [[spoiler:Theatre/{{Faust}}]]: A devil repeatedly tries to warn a man about the dangers of making a deal with him. The man doesn't listen. He regrets it.
* ''[[spoiler:The Father]]'': Old army scientist argues with his wife about their daughter.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof]]'': An old Jewish man wants to be rich and have his daughters get married.
* ''[[spoiler:The Flying Dutchman]]'': A young girl really likes this moody Byronic hero she read about. When he suddenly appears, her father who, like, Oh my god, doesn't understand her, turns out to be OMG evil, selling her to him! Then he finds out who he is, and tries to back out! Her boyfriend begs her to come back, but she throws herself off a cliff rather than being one of the mundanes. As an opera.
** Alternatively: Teenage girl gets the hots for a sexy but moody brunette man who is much older than she is. Said sexy but moody brunette freaks out when he learns the teenage girl already has a boyfriend. Teenage girl then kills herself so she can be with the sexy but moody brunette forever. This is considered a good ending.
** Alternatively: Girl commits suicide so she can shack up with a hot ghost.
* ''[[spoiler:Frank's Wild Years]]'': Man returns to hometown, tries to convince everyone that he's famous.
* ''[[spoiler:Frankenstein]]'': [[Series/{{Elementary}} Sherlock Holmes]] and [[Series/{{Sherlock}} Sherlock Holmes]] take turns being complete assholes to one another.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/FreewillIn2112]]'': A ploughman and his android buddy try to defeat aliens that have invaded a dystopian America. America now looks like something straight out of colonial times mixed with the rule of Hitler. The ploughman's father loves the dystopian America. Contains songs by [[Music/{{Rush}} a philosophical Canadian band.]]
** Or: The American Revolution in the 22nd century. With aliens. And androids.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/DerFreischuetz]]'': Man attempts to sabotage his romantic rival by tricking him into buying ammunition from a demonic Power Ranger.
** ''[[spoiler:The Black Rider]]'': The above, as a rock opera. Written by Music/TomWaits and Creator/WilliamSBurroughs.
* ''[[spoiler:The Frogs]]'': A deity goes to the land of the dead to bring back a dramatist who can guide a small country through a crisis. HilarityEnsues.
* ''[[spoiler:ComicBook/FunHome]]'': A 43 year old lesbian cartoonist reflects on how much of an asshole her father was. Also there are 2 other versions of her.
* ''[[spoiler:La gazza ladra]]'': A girl sells a spoon that a bird steals. The girl then gets blamed for the theft, but she is saved when the bird steals a coin.
* ''[[spoiler:The Ghost Sonata]]'': University student moves into lodging house populated by vampires, mummies, and [[NotSoImaginaryFriend people only he can see]]. Finds love, but she's dead.
* [[spoiler:Creator/GilbertAndSullivan]]: The theatrical collaborations of a humorist and a hymn writer.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Thespis}}]]'': The Greek gods go to Earth to drum up worshippers. The theatrical team that takes their place proves most incompetent. HilarityEnsues. This play is now lost forever, but that's all right because new music has been written for it.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TrialByJury]]'': A biased judge arbitrates a BreachOfPromiseOfMarriage case.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheSorcerer]]'': A couple of romantics hire a warlock to enchant the tea at their engagement party. To break the spell, one of them must go to a FateWorseThanDeath.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/HMSPinafore]]'' A sailor loves the Captain's daughter. Fortunately for the lovers, said tar and the Captain turn out to be each other.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance]]'': A guy's birthday screws up his love life and strains his relationship with his adoptive family. Who are {{pirate}}s!
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Patience}}]]'': There are twenty-one maidens. There are twenty Heavy Dragoons and two aesthetic poets. You do the math.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Iolanthe}}]]'': After their newest MP is outed as one, the House of Peers encounters fairies. By the end, everyone has become a fairy.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/PrincessIda]]'': In order to save her family, a ladies' college administrator must overcome her misandry and marry her fiance.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheMikado]]'': Japanese people threaten to commit suicide in order to avoid execution.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Ruddigore}}]]'': A [[BurnTheWitch burning witch]] curses a baronet and all his heirs to commit a crime a day or die in agony. HilarityEnsues.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheYeomenOfTheGuard]]'': A comedienne marries a condemned man for money. Tragedy Ensues.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheGondoliers]]'': Two naive idealists share the crown until the rightful heir is determined.
** ''[[spoiler:[[Theatre/UtopiaLimited Utopia, Limited]]]]'': An impressionable culture becomes a caricature of Victorian England. Two power-hungry apparatchiks and a man obsessed with [[StuffBlowingUp making things go boom]] protest. Characters from other operas get cameos.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheGrandDuke]]'': People "duel" with playing cards. Not an anime.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheGlassMenagerie]]'': Man recalls how he fell out with, and walked out on, his crazy mother and sickly sister.
* ''[[spoiler:The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?]]'': Man tells his family about his [[BestialityIsDepraved affair]]. They don't take it well.
* [[spoiler:''[[http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Grouch.php The Grouch]]'']]: A grumpy {{Jerkass}} falls down a well. HilarityEnsues. Someone thought so low of it that they used a copy of it in mummy wrappings.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals]]'': Musicals Are Bad: The Musical
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Hamilton}}]]'': The American Founding Fathers rap a lot.
** Man shoots immigrant, repeatedly calls his mother a whore.
** Epic Rap Battles of History: The Musical
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Hamlet}}]]'': The most famous play in the English language is about an emo teenager who spends all his time moping.
** Or: An emo contemplates suicide, a clown dies, and, in the end, [[EveryoneDies someone is going to have to clean up all those bodies]]. Maybe the Norwegian guy will do it.
** Or: son sets out to kill stepdad, procrastinates and inadvertently causes the deaths of 7 other people.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead]]'': Shakespearean characters discover gravity and play a game of tennis with questions. They die, but [[ForegoneConclusion you already]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin knew that.]]
* ''[[spoiler:Happy Days]]'': A woman is buried up to her waist in sand. By Act Two, she's buried up to her neck.
* [[spoiler:''The Haunted Manor'']]: Two Polish soldiers who vowed never to have sex hope to get married to two sisters but not until their aunt tells them a made-up story of hers. The title doesn't really prove it, but it's a comedy.
* ''[[spoiler:{{Theatre/Heathers}}]]'': Film/MeanGirls, but with murder.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/HenryV]]'': A king uses rhetoric to convince his army that dying in the muck is the best fate they could possibly hope for.
** Or: An English king punishes France for a poorly timed ball joke by conquering their country, marrying their princess, and talking a lot. Then he dies.
* ''[[spoiler:The Heracleidae]]'': One king threatens another with war if the other does not deliver up some orphaned children and their guardian to be killed.
* ''[[spoiler:Hippolytus]]'': The queen desires her misogynistic stepson, who spurns her. The King misunderstands her suicide note and things go downhill from there.
** ''[[spoiler:Phaedra]]'': The same as above, except that the queen lodges a false accusation against her stepson while still alive.
* ''[[spoiler:The House of Bernarda Alba]]'': Widow has the great idea of locking up her daughters for eight years. One of them has sex with her boyfriend through a window. And then she dies.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/HowToSucceedInBusinessWithoutReallyTrying]]'': A magic book gives a window washer control of a Fortune 500 company.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest]]'': Two guys use the same alias to woo shallow girls. HilarityEnsues.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/InTheHeights]]'': A Latino neighborhood sings and raps about immigration, gentrification, the financial implications of sudden wealth, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking how you get this]] [[SophisticatedAsHell gold shit]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking off the tops of champagne bottles]].
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/IntoTheWoods]]'': Various fairytales get CrisisCrossover'd with each other. The main conflict ends halfway through, and sometime later the narrator gets killed off.
** Or, it's all fun and games until after the interval.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Iolanta}}]]'': Everyone is very nice. A blind girl gets cured and marries.
* ''[[spoiler:Iphigenia in Tauris]]'': A FixFic in which a HumanSacrifice victim has survived, and when she returns home she takes a statue from where she's been staying.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/LItalianaInAlgeri]]'': A misogynistic official dumps his wife for an exotic beauty. HilarityEnsues.
* ''[[spoiler:Music/JesusChristSuperstar]]'': A really [[JesusWasWayCool cool]] guy and his friends sing rock songs. Religious fanatics and a corrupt politician murder him. He gets better.
** Alternatively: The Master of the Universe willingly goes through hell--literally--to save a species of utter bastards.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/JosephAndTheAmazingTechnicolorDreamcoat]]'': A spoiled FashionVictim is sold into slavery, but eventually becomes a VIP.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/KingLear'']]: A king learns that dividing your legacy by flattery is a really bad idea.
* [[spoiler:''Kiss of the Spider Woman'']] and [[spoiler:''Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Musical'']]: Sorta like ''Oz'' (the prison show, not the thing with the wizard), and one version has songs.
* [[spoiler:''The Knights'']]: A political AuthorTract in which a landowner claims a meat vendor as his new major-domo.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/LadyInTheDark'']]: Neurosis in successful businesswoman is linked to her inability to remember the words to [[DreamMelody a song]].
* [[spoiler:''Leave It To Me!'']]: [[InUniverseNickname "Stinky"]] bathtub man is upset because he's not in Kansas anymore, and tries to go back home the dishonorable way.
* ''[[spoiler:[[Theatre/LegallyBlonde Legally Blonde: The Musical]]]]'': Is ''Film/LegallyBlonde: The Musical''.
** ''[[spoiler:[[Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate Manos: The Rock Opera of Fate]]]]'' Is ''[[Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate Manos: The Rock Opera of Fate]]''.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ShrekTheMusical]]'': Is ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}: the Musical.''
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheLightInThePiazza]]'': A head trauma victim finds true love on vacation.
* ''[[spoiler:Long Day's Journey into Night]]'': Dysfunctional family stew over their resentments. A dead baby is given the author's name.
* ''[[spoiler:Lohengrin]]'': A knight of the Holy Grail marries a woman who gave him LoveAtFirstSight but must flee when she asks his name.
* ''[[spoiler:Lucia Di Lammermoor]]'': A girl is made to pretend to jilt her lover and marry a man she dislikes. Insanity Ensues.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}]]'': Women go on a sex strike to protest a war with a RealLife {{Dystopia}}. HilarityEnsues.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'']]: War hero finally finishes his "honey do" list, which involves [[KlingonPromotion a lot of politically-motivated murder,]] only to see his wife retreat into obsessive-compulsive hand-washing. Then a guy who was born by Cesarean section cuts his head off.
** Or: Witches stir a cauldron. This is the most memorable part of the play. If you trick an actor into saying the name of this play while in a theatre you win a prize.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Majora}}]]'': A young man struggles to locate a missing wedding present before the apocalypse.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/MammaMia]]'': A woman on a Greek island doesn't know who the father of her daughter is. Blamed for popularizing the JukeboxMusical.
** Or: Maury Povich: The Musical.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheMarriageOfFigaro]]'': Horny French people being very horny.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/MeAndMyDick]]'': A musical about a young boy struggling to loose his virginity, and his best friend is his dick.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor]]'': A fat man flirts with two married women in order to get at their money. His final attempt involves antlers.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice]]'': Nobody seems to know, just that it's racist [[OnceAcceptableTargets now]]. Actually, it's about a guy who agrees to get maimed so his freeloading best friend (and, as it turns out, ''his'' freeloading friend) can go skirt-chasing. It's considered a comedy.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/MerrilyWeRollAlong]]'': A composer breaks up with his wife, his lyricist and his best friend and it's told in reverse order.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream]]'': A king has trouble with his marriage, so he uses a magic flower and a trickster to get back good with his wife. A teenage love story and a stage play complicates matters. The phrase "Make an ass out of yourself" gets used far more literally than we're used too.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/LesMiserables]]'' Police officer won't stop chasing baked-goods-thief with a penchant for adopting prostitutes's daughters.
** Or: Fugitive eludes KnightTemplar, who then goes crazy and kills himself. Meanwhile, a whiny AttentionWhore tries to get another girl's boyfriend killed because she has a crush on him.
** Or: Actual InspectorJavert spends his life hunting for a good man and they all get mixed up in a failed rebellion. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It's not a happy show]].
* ''[[spoiler:Miss Julie]]'': Servant convinces title character that suicide is the only way to go.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheMousetrap]]'': Murders occur and the audience is [[DoNotSpoilThisEnding sworn to secrecy]] about whodunnit.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing]]'': A CardCarryingVillain tries to ruin a RomanticComedy as it unfolds. He fails when his plot is uncovered by a dumb policeman.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Newsies}}]]'': Corruption of the news media and manipulation of the working class vs jumpy boys.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/NextToNormal]]'': It's a musical about bipolar disorder and electric shock therapy...
* ''[[spoiler:The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail]]'': Man refuses to pay taxes, hallucinates vividly.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/NoExit]]'': Three people in a room talk about their lives in the past tense. Eventually one of them says something endlessly quotable and deeply misanthropic.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/NoisesOff]]'': Actors fail to perform a comedy correctly.
* ''[[spoiler:Norma]]'': A Gallic priestess sacrifices herself for having sex with a Roman soldier.
** ''[[spoiler:Mona]]'': As above, but the priestess is a Briton and no sex is involved. Heavily influenced by Wagner and far worse than it sounds.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/OedipusRex]]'': A city is in trouble because its king is [[{{Pun}} one mean motherfucker]].
** Alternatively: A man travels a long distance, unknowingly kills his father, and still unknowingly has sex with his mother (resulting in children). When the truth dawns on him [[EyeScream it blinds him]].
** Or: A [[{{Pun}} bad motherfucker]] [[UrExample invents]] the [[EyeScream Eye]] {{Spork}}.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Antigone}}]]'': Politician goes great lengths to stop a young inbred girl from burying her brother. A lot of people end up buried before all is said and done.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Oklahoma}}]]'': A cowboy and a creepy farmhand fight over a girl's picnic basket. The cowboy talks his rival into suicide, and is still considered the hero.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Oliver}}]]'': Kid does nothing in particular, but his very existence ends up killing a notorious criminal and his lover. In the end, the kid ends up living with his grandfather.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/OnAClearDayYouCanSeeForever]]'': 1960s flower child unknowingly regresses a few centuries while trying to give up smoking.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/OnceOnThisIsland]]'': A peasant lusts after a rich man and sells her soul to the devil to get him to like her. It doesn't work. She dies.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/OnceUponAMattress]]'': A prince goes against the wishes of his domineering mother and falls for a strange girl from a swamp. Meanwhile, the prince's mute father and the royal wizard try to rig a contest in opposite favors, and a lady of the palace must conceal her pregnancy out of wedlock.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheOresteia]]'': Murder besets a BigScrewedUpFamily. The arc ends in a squickfest that is now missing.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Agamemnon}}]]'': A man comes back from war bringing a psychic concubine. His wife and her lover (who happens to be [[AllThereInTheManual his inbred cousin raised to avenge his half-brother[=/=]uncles' murder by the homecomer's father]]) bump them off.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheLibationBearers]]'': An angry youth kills his mother and stepfather.
** ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheEumenides]]'': His ultimate fate is decided by a conflict of interest.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Othello}}]]'': A disgruntled, racist military officer arranges the deaths of his superiors.
* ''[[spoiler:Our American Cousin]]'': An Eaglelander visits his British relatives. HilarityEnsues--or did until a head of state was murdered at a performance of this play.
* ''[[spoiler:Overtones]]'': A snob and a poser talk about painting while the voices in their heads pine over each other's husbands.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/PacificOvertures]]'': A Kabuki style play with American showtunes.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Pagliacci}}]]'': A SadClown learns that his [[{{Pun}} wife is imitating art]]. He then proceeds to sing about his clown suit. Tragedy ensues.
* ''[[spoiler:Passion]]'': A man is stalked relentlessly by a local crazy woman until he shoots her cousin and has a nervous breakdown. It's a love story.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/PeerGynt]]'': A man travels the world and gets involved in all sorts of interesting things to wind up physically, spiritually and emotionally back where he started.
* ''[[spoiler:People Are Wrong!]]'': Young couple run afoul of landscaping cult.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/PericlesPrinceOfTyre]]'': A ruler who [[HeKnowsTooMuch knows too much]] escapes MortonsFork and takes a journey, where he gains a wife and daughter.
* ''[[spoiler:[[Creator/{{Aeschylus}} The Persians]]]]'': The oldest surviving play is about a Biblical king getting bad news from the front lines.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera]]'': Pederast terrorizes the French upper crust from underground lair.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ThePillowman]]'': A man who writes fairytales about the violent deaths of several children is brutally interrogated about the violent deaths of several children. It's a comedy.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Pippin}}]]'': An alienated youth in the Dark Ages finds out the hard way that killing his father is a bad idea. The show ends with a blazing spectacular finale which is never performed.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/PorgyAndBess]]'': Cocaine-using floozy moves in with cripple who likes to gamble.
* ''[[spoiler:Film/TheProducers]]'': Investment Fraud: The Musical.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheRealInspectorHound]]'': Critics watch and act in a knock-off of ''The Mousetrap'' while making snarky comments.
* ''[[spoiler:Film/ReeferMadnessTheMusical]]'': Anti-propaganda propaganda
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Rent}}]]'': Hugely popular remake of arty French opera ''La Boheme'' in which one character is turned into a drag queen, another into a bisexual performance artist, and everybody got AIDS and shit.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Rigoletto}}]]'': A nobleman and his jester are cursed. The jester is worried about his daughter because of this, but the nobleman doesn't care and sings a famous showstopper.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheRingOfTheNibelung]]'': Three generations of a BigScrewedUpFamily fight each other and their neighbors because of a ring, a spear, and some old women's prophecies. There are also fat ladies who wear helms and sing. Put together, it's all about twenty hours long.
** ''[[spoiler:Das Rheingold]]'': No intermissions, mermaids demonstrate idiocy, Norse gods try not to pay for their new house, and a magic ring is made.
** ''[[spoiler:Die Walküre]]'': Brother and sister hook up. A sword magically appears. The Flight of the Valkyries takes place and everyone only remembers that.
** ''[[spoiler:Siegfried]]'': Hero makes the sword from part two again, kills a dragon and a dwarf and wakes a sleeping beauty. Magical spear is broken in halves.
** ''[[spoiler:Götterdämmerung]]'': Hero cheats on his wife. Everyone dies, except for mermaids who get the ring.
* ''[[spoiler:The Rocky Horror Show]]'': Nice midwestern couple meet HumanAliens in drag. HilarityEnsues.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet]]'': Two teenagers help their emo friend get laid. Said friend kills himself when the postal service arrives late.
** Alternatively: Two horny teenagers behave like horny teenagers. EveryoneDies because of it.
** Alternatively: Two teens who are in love overreact and kill themselves. This is considered romantic by a depressingly large number of people.
** Alternatively, as offered on ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'': A couple of crazy mixed up kids run away from home and end up dead.
** Alternatively: A horny young adult follows a meek 13-year-old girl home after a party and gets her to start sneaking around behind her parents' backs. He kills a member of her family, possibly has sex with her offscreen, and eventually she kills herself because she can't be with him. Most people who have heard of it think it's the ultimate love story.
* ''[[spoiler: Theatre/SaintJoan]]'': Crossdressing schizophrenic religious fanatic joins the military and, despite being obviously mentally unstable, becomes a national hero.
** Alternatively: Girl saves her country through the power of religious extremism and drag.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheScarletPimpernel]]'' French expatriate accidentally sends her RichIdiotWithNoDayJob husband to his death while simultaneously trying to save his life, and while being seduced by her EvilIsSexy former lover. Everyone wonders about the SecretIdentity of a proto-superhero.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/SeraMyu]]'': Sailor Moon: The Musicals. Yes, really. And they're great. With an all-women cast the second go around, in addition to being TruerToTheText of the manga. Also, the [[MemeticMutation memetically useless token man]] is now the main attraction thanks to being played by an actress who flirts with the audience.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Seussical}}]]'': Stage adaptation of two famous children's books narrated by a character who appeared in neither.
* ''[[spoiler:The Seven Against Thebes]]'': Inbred brothers come to blows. Missing elements of the cycle are about the death of a king who ignored a prophecy telling him to stay single, the story of an unwitting [[{{Pun}} mean motherfucker]] discovering the truth, and a squickfest in which the motherfucker rescues AlwaysChaoticEvil nature spirits from a psychotic feline by solving a riddle.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/ShockheadedPeter]]'': Misbehaving children get what they deserve: a man in pancake makeup who plays the accordion and sings falsetto.
* ''[[spoiler:Six Characters in Search of an Author]]'': Play rehearsal gets interrupted by a dysfunctional family who don't exist.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TheSnowMaiden]]'': Frigid teenager becomes CluelessDudeMagnet. After three acts full of drama, she gets herself a love spell, chooses her fiancé and dies on her wedding day. Everyone celebrates the coming of summer.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/SomethingRotten]]'': The story of how musicals were created. Also Shakespeare was an ass.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Spamalot}}'']]: King Arthur on a budget with songs. Arthur and his knights are nearly thwarted in their quest because none of them are Jewish. Also, there's gay marriage in the 8th century.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheSpongeBobMusical'']] Underwater creatures panic about their town being destroyed. A sponge stays optimistic. [[MST3KMantra Don't take it too seriously]].
** Alternatively: Spongebob, but he’s a twunk now.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/SpringAwakening]]'': Sexually repressed nineteenth-century German teenagers sing catchy indie pop songs.
** Alternatively: German teenagers really need sex ed. The musical.
*** Or "Don't have sex because you will get [[spoiler: pregnant and die]]", the musical.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/StarlightExpress'']]: A Cinderella-type story where all the characters are railway engines and train cars.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Stomp}}]]'': EverythingIsAnInstrument: TheMusical.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire]]'': A fading Southern belle is driven insane by her brother-in-law.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/SundayInTheParkWithGeorge'']] Struggling artist paints cardboard characters while his girlfriend starts dating other men. 100 years later, the picture fades away.
* [[spoiler:''Film/SunsetBoulevard'']]: [[WhiteDwarfStarlet Forgotten silent film star]] sings out her passions to a random passerby whom she entraps.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet]]'': A StrawNihilist with a chip on his shoulder and a LethalChef decide to start a business together. [[ImAHumanitarian It involves cannibalism]].
** Alternately, a barber kills his customers and his neighbor bakes the bodies into pies. It's a musical.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/SweetCharity'']] A woman doesn't end up with a man. Then she doesn't end up with a different man. She meets a third man and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment they go to a strange church together]]. Then she doesn't end up with him.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheTalesOfHoffmann'']]: A poet is telling increasingly improbable stories about his love life while getting drunk.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'']]: Two rivals pay a third man to marry their intended's sister so they can marry the other girl. A transient college student marries her instead. There are penis jokes.
** Or: A man abuses his wife. HilarityEnsues.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TanzDerVampire'']]: The lives of a mousy young guy, a cranky old man, a girl with a thing for sponges, an innkeeper and a busty scullery wench take an interesting turn when the local aristocracy has a little get-together.
* ''[[spoiler:This House]]'': ForegoneConclusion: The Play.
* ''[[spoiler:Three Sisters]]'': A family plan to move house, but never get around to doing it. One guy has a brief soliloquy about human nature, but gets interrupted by another guy's search for chocolate.
* [[spoiler:Theatre/{{Thirteen}}]]: [[TitleDrop 13]] Teenagers sing about being 13... Or a [[YouHaveToHaveJews Jewish]] WeirdnessMagnet moves to Indiana and somehow gets himself wedged between the politics of a BettyAndVeronica LoveTriangle between the BrainlessBeauty (Betty) the JerkJock (Archie) and the AlphaBitch (Veronica) and has to choose between the cool kids and the {{nerd}}s, one of whom is the GirlNextDoor, and the other one is a '''major''' subversion of the LittlestCancerPatient.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TimonOfAthens]]'': A wastrel snaps when his fair-weather friends desert him after his dough runs out. His approval fills a RealLife DepravedBisexual with shame.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TitleOfShow]]'': Two guys write a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/TitusAndronicus'']]: A man slowly goes mad, several people end up dead in the woods, and a queen learns to regret accepting dinner invitations.
* ''[[spoiler:Thyestes]]'': A king who sees himself as AboveGoodAndEvil tricks his brother into cannibalism.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Tosca}}]]'': Two revolutionaries are caught by authorities and die. A girl stabs her would-be rapist and kills herself.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/TristanUndIsoldeWagner]]'': A woman drinks love potion with her enemy by mistake. They fall in love and spend the rest of a four-hour long opera angsting over their hopeless love until they die.
* ''[[spoiler: Theatre/TwelfthNight]]'': A SweetPollyOliver finds herself in a LoveDodecahedron, made even worse when her dead brother shows up. Drunkards trick an uptight man.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Urinetown}}]]'': A cheerily dystopian musical about ''really'' needing to go to the bathroom.
* ''[[spoiler:Venus In Fur]]'': An actress auditioning for a role in a play about sadomasochism has a sadomasochistic relationship with the director, who is engaged to another woman. It is a comedy.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/AVeryPotterMusical]]'': A bunch of college students Americanize a British book series with lousy sound quality, cheesy songs, and a complete change of nearly every character's personality.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/WaitingForGodot'']]: Nothing happens. The next night, nothing continues to happen. It's a classic of modern literature.
** Alternately: nothing happens. Twice.
** Or: Two guys wait for somebody who never shows up.
* [[spoiler:''Well'']]: a [[strike:play]] [[InsistentTerminology theatric exploration]] of racial integration, allergies and the playwright's mommy issues. Ultimately, the actors all quit, leaving the playwright alone to face the themes of her own work. Needless to say, [[NoFourthWall the fourth wall is a pile of smoldering splinters by this point]].
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/WesterosAnAmericanMusical'']]: An amateur cast retells the plot of an unfinished book series and its TV adaptation with a SeasonalRot issue, setting it to the music of an existing SungThroughMusical. The only thing in common between the plot's source and the music's source is being VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory depictions of outdated politics. From two radically different time periods, in two radically different locations.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf'']]: Bickering married couple has guests.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Wicked}}'']]: Passionate animal rights activist with a weird skin condition learns magic, befriends the AlphaBitch, steals her boyfriend, and sets up the AlphaBitch as a benevolent dictator by [[spoiler:faking her own death.]] Her sister also becomes dictator of an agricultural {{Ruritania}} and then [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dies violently]] (though she might have survived after all).
** Alternately: Published FanFiction of L. Frank Baum's work made into a musical.
* [[spoiler:''William Shakespeare's Star Wars'']]: Retro stage plays based on space opera. A literal little green man talks in haiku.
* [[spoiler:''Theatre/{{Wit}}'']]: Crabbit, nerdy spinster dies in agony.
** Alternatively, a professor finds an ideal candidate for his research, neglects to tell her that she's going to die and then leaves his intern to deal with it. Said intern goes on to desecrate the subject's corpse.
* ''[[spoiler:The Witches of Eastwick]]'': Three women having affairs conjure up the devil. They all sleep with him.
* [[spoiler:''Ride/WorldOfColor'']]: One of the least-loved Ride/DisneyThemeParks presents a half hour of clips and fountains arranged in a manner that doesn't really follow a plot. Each performance, only 4000 people can see the projections; everyone else who wants to watch has to settle for the backside of water.
* ''[[spoiler:Theatre/{{Woyzeck}}]]'': Play, rewritten as an opera, and then again as a ''rock opera'', about a soldier who eats nothing but peas and then goes crazy, murders his girlfriend and maybe accidentally drowns himself.
----

** Teenage girl gets the hots for a sexy but moody brunette man who is much older than she is. Said sexy but moody brunette freaks out when he learns the teenage girl already has a boyfriend. Teenage girl then kills herself so she can be with the sexy but moody brunette forever. This is considered a good ending.

* [[spoiler:Theatre/WesterosAnAmericanMusical]]: An amateur cast retells the plot of an unfinished book series and its TV adaptation with a SeasonalRot issue, setting it to the music of an existing SungThroughMusical. The only thing in common between the plot's source and the music's source is being VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory depictions of outdated politics. From two radically different time periods, in radically different locations.

* [[spoiler:Theatre/WesterosAnAmericanMusical]]: An amateur casts retells the plot of an unfinished book series and its TV adaptation with a SeasonalRot issue, setting it to the music of an existing SungThroughMusical. The only thing in common between the plot's source and the music's source is being VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory depictions of outdated politics. From two radically different time periods, in radically different locations.

* [[spoiler:Theatre/WesterosAnAmericanMusical]]: An amateur casts retells the plot of an unfinished book series and its TV adaptation with a SeasonalRot issue, setting it to the music of an existing SungThroughMusical. The only thing in common between the plot's source and the music's source is being LooselyBasedOnATrueStory depictions of outdated politics. From two radically different time periods.

*
[[spoiler:''Theatre/TheTalesOfHoffmann'']]: A poet is telling increasingly improbable stories about his love life while getting drunk.

*
''[[spoiler:Theatre/TristanUndIsoldeWagner]]'': A woman drinks love potion with her enemy by mistake. They fall in love and spend the rest of a four-hour long opera angsting over their hopeless love until they die.
*
''[[spoiler: Theatre/TwelfthNight]]'': A SweetPollyOliver finds herself in a LoveDodecahedron, made even worse when her dead brother shows up. Drunkards trick an uptight man.

[[spoiler:''TheTalesOfHoffmann'']]: A poet is telling increasingly improbable stories about his love life while getting drunk.