Times where someone insists "The Show Must Go On!" regardless of setbacks in Theatre.
- Annie Get Your Gun: Referenced in "There's No Business Like Show Business"You get word before the show has started
That your favorite uncle died at dawn
And top of that, your pa and ma have parted
You're broken-hearted, but you go on - The plot of Curtains kicks off when the star of a musical in tryouts in Boston is murdered after a performance. The rest of the cast plan to go back to New York, and one of the producers tries to get them to stay for the rest of the preview period by singing "The Show Must Go On," but the actors are not convinced. It isn't until the detective on the case reminds them that they're "Show People" that they decide to stay (not to mention the detective sequestered the building so they couldn't leave anyway).
- The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals has a variant, as the Hive Mind will always prioritize musical numbers before capturing non-infected humans. This makes it relatively easy for the heroes to get out of a trap, since the infected soldiers surrounding them move predictably with the beat. It also becomes rather hilarious when uninfected Professor Hidgens starts performing a musical number he wrote himself, causing the hive mind to immediately cast two random people to star as his backup dancers, and only infecting him once the number is finished.
- Molière's last performance was the leading role for The Imaginary Invalid. He incorporated a coughing fit and hemorrhage into his performance, and managed to complete the play before collapsing and dying hours later.
- The climax of the first act of La Cage aux folles emerges from this trope. Backstage, professional Drag Queen Albin has just been told by his partner Georges that he must not be around when their "son" Jean-Michel's prospective and highly conservative in-laws come to dinner tomorrow night, as Jean-Michel has lied to them and claimed he comes from a "normal" family. Albin tries to be casual in the face of rejection as he heads out on stage as his alter ego Zaza to perform the evening's finale, but then he almost breaks down in tears...before pulling himself together and delivering a dazzling, emotionally-charged performance via one of the most famous Act One finales in Broadway history, "I Am What I Am".
- This is the entire plot of Noises Off.
- This is what triggers the climax in Pagliacci, as the first act concludes with Canio having to prepare to put on the show just after finding out about his wife's affair, and eventually devolves into All Part of the Show when he can no longer contain himself.
- Defied in Pippin. When Pippin refuses to perform the final scene of the show (which has No Fourth Wall), the Players try to exhort him to continue, with remarks like, "Hey, you're not going to disappoint all these people at $25 a seat, are you?" But when they see that Pippin is firmly determined not to commit Self-Immolation, they retaliate by taking away the lights, costumes, and makeup. The Leading Player apologizes to the audience that the promised finale cannot be presented, offers the part to anyone in the audience, and then orders everybody out, including the orchestra, leaving Pippin, Catherine and Theo to end the show on a denuded dark stage.
- The Play That Goes Wrong and its spiritual successor Peter Pan Goes Wrong can be considered homages to this trope. Lines are fluffed, cues are missed, props are destroyed, the lighting fails and the wrong music plays, but the (fictional) cast and crew soldier on to the end as the set collapses around them.
