- In The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Logianne's dads are this, warping her self-image to completely revolve around winning and making her feel like a failure in life when she misspells a word.
- Olive's parents are abusive in different ways, her mother abandoning her with an emotionally (and in some productions, physically) abusive father for a "spiritual quest."
- 35MM: A Musical Exhibition: In "The Ballad of Sara Berry", Sara's father puts enormous pressure on her to be the best, to the point of implying she'd be worthless if she didn't become prom queen.
- Jason and Nadias' parents in Bare: A Pop Opera are described throughout the show as emotionally abusive, putting immense pressure on Nadia to lose weight and Jason to continue the family legacy and excel in traditional masculine activities. It is also heavily implied that their father is physically abusive, with Jason thinking that if he comes out then his father will "beat the shit out of me and then disown me."
- Be More Chill's Rich is implied to have an unstable home life, his dad being an alcoholic.
- Lex and Hannah's mother in Black Friday is neglectful and an alcoholic drug addict, leaving the raising of her younger daughter Hannah almost exclusively to her older daughter Lex (with some help from Lex's boyfriend, Ethan).
- Buried Child has Dodge and Halie. Both emotionally abuse their sons onstage. Prior to the events of the play, Halie has sex with Tilden producing a baby which Dodge drowns.
- In Electra, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus verbally abuse Electra, confine her to the house, prevent her from marrying, and leave her in neglect. This crosses over into physical abuse with their plan to seal her up in a cave to die.
- Elisabeth: Rudolf suffers from emotional neglect from both his parents since his childhood. His mother fought to have final say in how her children are raised, then gave up. His father caved in to please his wife, then aggressively rebuts Rudolf's efforts to create change in the Empire. note His grandmother Sophie, the only one seen doing any actual parenting for Rudolf, insists on training him to be a ruthless soldier/ruler because the boy is too soft. Small wonder the highly-sensitive, ultra-liberal Prince snapped, given that the only person who seems to care about him to some degree is Death. And even that varies by production, with some actors having portrayed Death as callous towards Rudolf after he's dead, or even disliking him from their first meeting but still needing him for the purpose of seducing Sisi.
- Fat Ham:
- Pap constantly bullied and best Juicy over nothing, and despised him for his non-traditionally masculine behavior. He was eventually sent to prison for killing a man in front of Juicy, who was still a child at the time.
- Rev doesn't treat Juicy any better. He spends all of Juicy's tuition money on getting a bath mat for himself, bullies him for being "soft", and punches him in the stomach at one point for annoying him.
- Tedra genuinely loves Juicy and feels guilty about Rev stealing his tuition, but she's so desperate to have someone love her that she's willing to stay with Rev no matter how unhappy or makes him. She also dismisses his complaints and victim-blames him for annoying Rev.
- Downplayed with Rabby. She's a loving mother, but she forces her children on set career paths and refuses to acknowledge what they actually want.
- In Heathers: The Musical, Big Bud Dean, J.D.'s father, is emotionally abusive to his son, makes some very unsettling comments about his son's girlfriend, apparently drove his wife to suicide, and is constantly drunk. Physical abuse is also heavily implied.
- Jasper in Deadland:
- Jasper's cynical world view stems from the emotional abuse of his parents, and the fact that he thinks it's partly his fault that his parents aren't better people.
- Partway through Act 2, Agnes reveals that her father is physically abusive.
- In Les Misérables, the Thenardiers are this to Cosette, who they are in charge of while Fantine works and sends them money to care for her. Instead of looking after her, they beat her, dress her in rags, leave her in the cold, and force her to do all their chores. Their own daughter, Eponine, is treated like a princess as a child. When she's a teenager and actually in her father's gang though, she's treated far more roughly by him. Most notable is the scene in which Thenardier and his gang try to rob Valjean's house, and Eponine screams to warn them. Thenardier threatens her for that and, in many productions, slaps her to shut her up. In the full version of "Beggars at the Feast", both the Thenardiers are horribly dismissive when Marius sadly tells them how Eponine is now dead.
- Lizzie: Mr. Borden is raping Lizzie, and it's implied that his other daughter, Emma, is a victim, too. This ultimately gets him killed.
- In Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, Old Prince Bolkonsky is emotionally abusive towards his daughter Mary.
- Nerdy Prudes Must Die:
- Jerk Jock Max Jägerman implies that his father is emotionally abusive, saying that if he runs away from his fears, his father will call him a coward and a "cuck." He also has a very low bar for what constitutes kindness, and presumably didn't learn that from nowhere.
- More overtly, Stephanie's dad clearly doesn't care one whit about her, considering her to be useless and a burden, and is far more concerned with his polling numbers than his daughter. He insults her every time they interact, has her phone bugged so he can track her, and doesn't bother to actually raise her. When she gets caught cheating, he doesn't care that she's done something dishonest, and outright says he doesn't care if she lies, cheats, or steals to get good grades—but she better get good grades, since it would look bad for the mayor's daughter to flunk out. He also orders her and her friends to make a Deal with the Devil to stop Max's ghost from destroying the world, and is uncaring about the danger this puts Steph in.
- In Perfect Pie, both of Marie's parents are abusive, especially her mother. While her father is 'just' extraordinarily neglectful to her and constantly drunk, her mother is aggressively physically and emotionally abusive to her.
- Spring Awakening has Martha and Ilse, who both suffer from this sort of abuse. The song "The Dark I Know Well" is all about sexual abuse.
- Moritz's father is emotionally and physically abusive after Moritz fails out of school. This leads to his suicide in the second act.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has Adolfo Pirelli, who is physically abusive toward his ward Tobias Ragg. According to Toby, Pirelli is "a good one with the lashings", and his treatment of the boy during the street scene is deplorable. This sets Pirelli up quite nicely as an Asshole Victim even before The Reveal of his past with Sweeney and his attempt to blackmail him.
- One of the characters in Voices from the High School is abused by his father, and he eventually talks to a friend about it.
- Another example is Millie's mother, who gave her alcohol as a young child to "help with naps."
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