Among the worthwhile moments I saw on stage in 2016, a surprising number became more memorable because of off-stage events.
It’s impossible now to remember the Radio City Rockettes performing to Singin In The Rain (in the video below), without thinking of Debbie Reynolds, who became a star at age 19 because of the movie that introduced that song, and who died at the end of 2016 at age 84, one day after the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher.
Many memorable stage moments of 2016 that were connected to the outside world had to do with the politics of this surreal year. (Look at Hadestown and The Last Black Man.)
There were also moments of spectacle and spectacular tricks of stagecraft that I’m not likely to forget, and quieter moments that roped me in emotionally.
Click on any photograph below to see it enlarged and to read the extensive caption that explains the memorable stage moment.















Links to reviews and more photographs of the shows whose moments I list above:
The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World AKA The Negro Book of the Dead
A 24 Decade History of Popular Music
Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812