Line #3 TitleDrop/Theatre


1	* Frequently done with title songs in musicals (too many to list).
2	* Creator/WilliamShakespeare does this occasionally:
3	-->'''Helena''': Theatre/AllsWellThatEndsWell; still the fine's the crown; \
4	Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
5	-->...
6	-->'''Duke''': Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; \
7	Like doth quit like, and [[Theatre/MeasureForMeasure measure still for measure]].
8	-->...
9	-->'''Prince''': For never was a story of more woe
10	--> Than this of [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet Juliet and her Romeo]].
11	-->...
12	-->This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,
13	-->And Dromio my man did bring them me:
14	-->I see we still did meet each other's man,
15	-->And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
16	-->And thereupon these [[Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors errors]] are arose.
17	-->...
18	-->He that knows better how to [[Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew tame a shrew]],
19	-->Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show.
20	* When the curtain opens on the prologue of ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'', we see and hear the fiddler playing, and the very first lines in the show are Tevye saying, "A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no?" The fiddler, who plays no part in the plot, is explained by Tevye to be a metaphor for the tenacious existence of Anatevka and its people.
21	* The opening scene of ''Theatre/DamnYankees'' has one in dialogue (what Joe says when Meg asks him if the Washington Senators won the game he was watching) and another in the song "Six Months" ("Those damn Yankees! Why can't we beat 'em?")
22	* ''Theatre/TheImportanceOfBeingEarnest,'' last lines:
23	-->'''Lady Bracknell:''' My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality. \
24	'''Jack ("Earnest") Worthing:''' On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.
25	* "There are no Theatre/AngelsInAmerica" re: the lack of spiritual or ethnic history in the nation's culture--it's a big rant about how everything is political. Although, in the context of this play, there [[spoiler: are angels in America]], and Louis is, as Belize says "so full of piping hot crap that the mention of [his] name draws flies" in the monologue/monolith in which he makes the above statement.
26	* In the opening scene of ''Theatre/TheMusicMan'', one of the salesmen on the train calls Professor Harold Hill a "music man" during the "Rock Island" [[PatterSong patter]].
27	* In the musical ''Theatre/CatchMeIfYouCan'', the opening song "Live in Living Color" has a title drop on a high note at the end of the bridge
28	** "What's a name/Just window dressing/Everyone knows that it's the clothes that make the man/Play the game, just keep 'em guessing/mix and match me, try to catch me/If you can!"
29	* Paul Rudnick's ''I Hate Hamlet'' does this unabashedly, as the script calls for a lightning strike for emphasis upon delivery of the line.
30	* In ''Theatre/YouCantTakeItWithYou'', Grandpa drops the title in reference to Mr. Kirby's wealth.
31	* Sometimes encountered in the Creator/GilbertAndSullivan operettas:
32	** "Thou hast come to join Theatre/TheYeomenOfTheGuard."
33	** "They are pirates! The famous [[Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance Pirates of Penzance!]]"
34	* ''Theatre/LesMiserables'' is generally considered to be an untranslatable title. It is dropped in the finalé in the original French version of the musical; it is translated as "the wretched of the Earth" in the more widely-heard English libretto, but this is a loose translation and loses the effect of the TitleDrop.
35	* In Drew Hayden Taylor's ''Someday'', the word "someday" is pronounced exactly twice: at the very beginning of the play, by the mother, Anne, who states that she'll be rich "someday." She wins the lotto and also fulfills her dream of meeting Grace/Janice, her daughter who was taken away by children's aid 35 years earlier. The family reunion seems to be going well until Grace, now the rich lawyer Janice, asks why she was taken away and Anne tells her the truth, that it's because they were Native Canadian and poor. Janice can't accept that answer and realizes how different she is from her birth family, having been raised by an upper-middle-class family while her mother and sister live on reservation. She leaves quite brutally and merely states "I'll be back...someday." This is the most chilling line of the play, especially since it started set up as a play about dreams being fulfilled. Made even more poignant since in the sequel, ''Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth'', she does come back...[[spoiler: for Anne's burial]].
36	* Given that the word "Wicked" is spoken often in the 2nd act of [[Theatre/{{Wicked}} the eponymous show]], there is one conversation where Elphaba emphasises to Glinda that she is now "the WICKED witch of the west," which is important.
37	** More whimsically: "For the first time, I feel...wicked."
38	** The very first song of the show is 'No One Mourns the Wicked', which ends with the ensemble shouting the title in unison.
39	** Word of god has stated that he originally intended for all the song titles to include some form of "Wicked", "good", "bad" "wonderful", etc. In the end only 6 songs did. ("No One Mourns the Wicked", "Something Bad", "Thank Goodness", "Wonderful", "No Good Deed", & "For Good")
40	* ''Theatre/InheritTheWind'' has Matthew Harrison Brady [[AsTheGoodBookSays quote scripture]]. It becomes considered for his [[spoiler:epitaph]].
41	* "Don't forget that a few years ago we came through the depression by Theatre/TheSkinOfOurTeeth. One more tight squeeze like that and where would we be?"
42	* In ''Theatre/WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf'', the TitleDrop occurs as a bit of drunken singing (parodying "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf").
43	* ''Theatre/PaintYourWagon'' does it in its theme song "I'm On My Way," which is technically not a title song:
44	-->Got a dream, boy? Got a song?\
45	'''Paint your wagon''' and come along!
46	** And in the [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]] parody, its
47	--> '''Lee Marvin''': Gonna paint your wagon,\
48	Gonna paint it fine,\
49	Gonna use oil-based paint\
50	'Cause the wood is pine.
51	--> '''Choir:''' Ponderosa pine! Wooo-ooh!
52	* In ''Theatre/CatOnAHotTinRoof'', Maggie uses the phrase to describe her life.
53	* In ''Theatre/UpTheDownStaircase'', the title (an offense one of the protagonist's students is detained for) is rather painfully dropped twice, once near the beginning and once at the play's "climax."
54	* "When he died--- and by the way he died the '''Theatre/DeathOfASalesman''', in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, going into Boston---when he died, hundreds of salesman and buyers were at his funeral. Things were sad on a lotta trains for months after that."
55	* Subverted in ''Ah, Wilderness!'' by Creator/EugeneONeill: the character is interrupted just before getting to that line in a poem.
56	* Arthur Miller's ''Theatre/AllMySons'': Joe says at the end, "Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were."
57	* The Music/ColePorter musical ''Out Of This World'' drops its title in the song "No Lover."
58	* ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' has a literal TitleDrop in its first scene, where Blanche tells how she came to the house on Elysian Fields. Later, there is a less literal but more meaningful reference:
59	-->'''Stella''': But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark--that sort of making everything else seem--unimportant.\
60	'''Blanche''': What you are talking about is brutal desire--just--Desire!--the name of that rattle-trap streetcar that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street and down another...
61	* A double title drop is done in Creator/AndrewLloydWebber's ''Tell Me on a Sunday''. There's the title song, but it also contains the lyrics "let me down easy, no big song and dance". ''Tell Me on a Sunday'' was combined with ''Variations'' to form the reworked show ''Song and Dance'', consisting of one "song" act (Tell Me on a Sunday) and one "dance" act (Variations), so this one is a retroactive title drop as well.
62	** ''Music/JesusChristSuperstar, Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera,'' and ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'' all have songs with a TitleDrop chorus.
63	* Theatre/SweetGayBabyJesus: Used as an exclamation during the course of the play, rather than a character name, as some had hoped.
64	* In ''Theatre/TheCatAndTheCanary'', no cats or canaries are brought up until the second act, when Annabelle starts flipping through a random book and finds herself reading about fear and how to overcome it through understanding:
65	-->"Take a bird--a canary in a cage--put it on a table--then let a cat jump up and walk around the cage, glaring at the canary. What happens? The canary, seeing its enemy so close to it, is frightened almost to death. But if it had understanding, it would know that the cat couldn't reach it while it had the protection of the cage. Not knowing this, it suffers a thousand deaths--through fear."
66	* Creator/GeorgeBernardShaw's ''You Never Can Tell'' has no less than five {{Title Drop}}s, all by the same character, who considers it philosophy.
67	* Several characters in ''Dog Sees God'' title drop the scene titles, and Beethoven mentions in The Vipers Nest that it's said "a dog sees god in his master." Interestingly, the play also drops the title of another Charlie-Brown themed work in the final monologue, as CB reads a letter from his mysterious pen pal CS (Charles Shultz) who tells him that despite his struggles, he is [[Theatre/YoureAGoodManCharlieBrown a good man]].
68	* "The sight is dismal, and our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, to tell him his commandment is fulfilled, that ''Theatre/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead''."
69	* Not a title song, but the last lyric in the musical OrdinaryDays: "... the color of an ordinary day."
70	* Creator/CirqueDuSoleil's ''Amaluna'' lacks a title song, but the title appears in the song "Hope" and the TriumphantReprise of "Elma Om Mi Lize".
71	** Cirque shows that do have title songs and from there title drops include ''Theatre/{{Alegria}}'' and ''Quidam''.
72	* ''Theatre/BarefootInThePark'' has several references to the title, but only once using its exact wording:
73	-->'''Corie''': It's suddenly very clear that you and I have absolutely ''nothing'' in common.\
74	'''Paul''': Why? Because I won't walk barefoot in the park in winter?
75	* ''Theatre/PacificOvertures'':
76	-->'''Reciter''': From the personal journal of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. 14 July 1853. As I supervise the final preparations for this afternoon's historic landing at Kanagawa, I am moved to hope the Japanese will voluntarily accept the reasonable and '''pacific overtures''' embodied in our friendly letter.
77	* In ''Theatre/MarginForError'', the Consul, regarding his financial troubles, says, "The Third Reich allows no margin for error!" This line is echoed by Max in the second act.
78	* ''Theatre/CactusFlower'':
79	-->'''Stephanie''': Now, Doctor, you've been complaining that I'm too grim and efficient. You compared me with my cactus plant. Well, Doctor, every once in a while this prickly little thing-- puts out a lovely flower that some people think--
80	* This mixes with AsTheGoodBookSays in ''Theatre/ThereShallBeNoNight'', when Kaarlo quotes Revelation 22:4-5. "And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." The quote is from the vision of a new Eden in the last chapter of Revelation; Kaarlo means it to reflect his hope for the future of man.
81	* Natalie drops the title in a bittersweet duet with her mother in ''Theatre/{{Next to Normal}}'':
82	--->'''Diana''': We tried to give you a normal life. I realize now I have no clue what that is.
83	--->'''Natalie''': I don't need a life that's normal, that's way too far away, but something next to normal would be okay.
84	* In ''Theatre/ThePlayboyOfTheWesternWorld'', Pegeen Mike builds up Christy Mahon in her mind as a dashing, romantic figure, breaks off the relationship when she realizes she's been LovingAShadow, and then discovers, when it's too late to get him back, that in every way that matters he really is everything she'd hoped of him. The last line of the play is her lament that she's "lost the only Playboy of the Western World".
85	* The first two lines sung in ''Theatre/ComeFromAway'' are as follows:
86	-->Welcome to the Rock if you come from away
87	-->You'll probably understand about half of what we say
88	** For bonus points, the title of that song is ''Welcome to the Rock'', making two title drops in one line.
89	* The TitleDrop in ''Theatre/RideTheCyclone'' comes from that FourthWallObserver/ narrator "The Amazing Karnak", a [[FortuneTeller mechanical fortune teller]] with legitimate psychic powers who can accurately predict the time, date, and cause of death of anyone who gets their fortune read. He was set to ‘family fun novelty mode’ when he was bought by the [[CrappyCarnival Wonderville Traveling Fairground]], leaving him only able to repeat the phrase "Your lucky number is 8. Ride the Cyclone." In his opening monologue to the audience Karnak laments that he was the one to suggest the six members of the St. Cassian High School chamber choir to ride the poorly maintained Cyclone roller coaster, which derailed at the apex of the loop-de-loop and hurtled the teenagers to their untimely deaths.
90	--> '''The Amazing Karnak''': And my part in the story? I read all of the children's fortunes. I felt their hopes, thoughts, dreams, knowing they would board the doomed roller coaster, and could tell them nothing. I even suggested they ride the cyclone.
91	* ''Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville'' does this with the subtitle, "L'inutile precauzione" ("The useless precaution"). They are the last words that Figaro sings before the finale, as well as the made-up name of an opera that Rosina supposedly sings an aria from during a sham music lesson.

Context TitleDrop / Theatre