Curtains

"There's a special kind of people known as: show people!"

Curtains is a 2007 Kander and Ebb musical murder-mystery-comedy. It was nominated for eight Tony Awards, though it only won one (David Hyde Pierce-Best Actor in a Musical). The original cast included David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk.

The show is set in 1959 Boston, where a troupe of actors is trying out a musical called Robbin' Hood of the Old West. During the opening night curtain call, the extremely untalented star, Jessica Cranshaw, drops dead. Lt. Frank Cioffi is sent to the theater to investigate what has been determined to be a murder, declaring no one is allowed to leave the building.

The list of suspects includes pretty much everybody, as no one much liked Jessica. First there is the producer, Carmen Berstein, who is busy trying to get the cast to continue on with the show despite the loss of its lead. Composer Aaron Fox is preocuppied with rewriting a big production number while his lyricist ex-wife Georgia Hendricks is convinced to take over the lead. Cioffi takes a liking to Jessica's understudy, Nikki, and hopes she's not the murderer. Other suspects include the flamboyant director, Christopher Belling, theater critic Daryl Grady, Carmen's shady husband, Sydney, who claims to have just arrived from New York, Bambi, their daughter, financial backer Oscar Shapiro, leading man Bobby Pepper, and stage manager Johnny Harmon.

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Includes Examples of:

• Ascended Fanboy: Cioffi's a big one, seeing as he gets to play Rob Hood in the musical at the end.
• Abusive Parents: Double subverted: Carmen insults her daughter Bambi every chance she gets, but it was mainly to give her a chance to shine without being accused of nepotism. Played straight with Sid, who doesn't even seem to know he has a stepdaughter.
• Ambiguously Jewish: Sid and Carmen Bernstein. The names give it away. Both possess some stereotypically Jewish traits as well, mainly a love of money.
• Ambiguously Gay: Belling. Or at the very least Camp Straight.
• Cat Scare: Johnny is alone on stage and hears creepy noises from offstage, but it turns out to be just Chris playing with a stray cat. Then he hears more creepy noises, but this time it turns out to be the murderer and Johnny gets shot.
• Caustic Critic: Nearly every review Robbin' Hood gets at first seems to come from one of these, and the cast spends an entire song ("What Kind Of Man") calling out this type of critics.
• Crowd Song: "Wide Open Spaces", "Show People", "Thataway", "He Did It", the last "In the Same Boat"
  • Justified with a few of the numbers, as "Wide Open Spaces", "Thataway" and the final version of "In The Same Boat" were actually rehearsed for Robbin' Hood.
• Comedy of Remarriage: Aaron and Georgia
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Lt. Cioffi's reworking and re-staging of all three melodies of "In the Same Boat"
• Deadpan Snarker: Carmen and Belling, although everyone in the cast has their moments.
• Do Not Spoil This Ending: The closing number advises the audience not to give away the murderer or it might be curtains for them next.
• Eureka Moment: Subverted; Cioffi shouts "That's it! I've solved it!" But he turns out to mean that he's figured out how to improve one of the musical numbers in Robbin' Hood; he still doesn't know who the murderer is.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Aaron has one over Georgia.
• "I Am" Song: "It's a Business" for Carmen, "Coffee Shop Nights" for Cioffi
• Imagine Spot: "A Tough Act To Follow"
• The Ingenue: Nikki, with a generous helping of The Ditz and Cloudcuckoolander on the side.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Bobby towards Georgia.
• Large Ham: Magnificently done with Mr. Belling. Sid Bernstein can also be a large ham if required.
• Meaningful Echo: Parson Tuck's final speech of Robbin' Hood. First shown on opening night being delivered to Bobby, and at the end of the play it gains new meaning when Cioffi steps into the role of Rob Hood.
• Ms. Fanservice: Jessica Cranshaw.
• Mood Whiplash: Severe. The play usually alternates between complete seriousness and laugh-out-loud moments in the same scene (one after another, of course.) These tend to be Crowning Moment of Funny (YMMV.)
• Noodle Incident: What happened in the bridal suite at the Hotel Taft. Brought up again and again and again by Carmen.
• Pair the Spares: Bobby and Bambi
• Sherlock Scan: Lampshaded by Cioffi.
• Show Within a Show: Robbin' Hood
• Stalker with a Crush: The murderer.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: "A Tough Act To Follow", the most "musical-ish" of the songs, is being imagined by both Nikki and Cioffi at the same time.
• Stylistic Suck: The first song, "Wide Open Spaces", is a cheesy parody of Western musicals hampered even further by Jessica's bad acting.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Well, one of them. And kind of in a weird way.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Lampshaded by Aaron in "I Miss the Music"
• The Knights Who Say Squee: Cioffi, despite being a police detective, gushes at all the actors and the writers when he first enters the scene.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: What actually happened at the Noodle Incident.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: "He Did It"
• Triang Relations: Georgia, Aaron and Bobby. Made more complicated due to Georgia using Bobby for an Operation: Jealousy.
• Twist Ending: One of the victims, Sid Bernstein, was not killed by the main murderer, but by his wife, Carmen.