“Show’s over. Get out!”
“I’m Not At All in Love” from The Pajama Game
The one piece of music ever that stunned me to silence - I didn’t know it was even in the movie - was Die Wacht am Rhein from Cabaret. I will honestly never forget my response to that.
On a cheerier note a little thought brings up You Gotta Have Heart from Damn Yankees which I would like to see again for What Lola Wants, Lola Gets as well.
Possibly a comparable show-stopper to Eve’s pick of “Tell me Pretty Maiden” was when Ray Bolger was doing “Once In Love With Amy” in Where’s Charley. He ended up doing 2-3 reprises every show, the audience sang along with him, etc…turning the 3 minute number into a 25 minute long performance every show.
Absolutely! 
Nicely-nicely Johnson (oh, all right - Stubby Kaye)
I’ve seen the film innumerable times - yup, a showstopper for me on every occasion.
I saw it in a local theatre matinee - yup, a showstopper (and the audience was mainly retired people 
).
My school is doing a production. The pupil playing Nicely-nicely is already rehearsing an encore, because the production team know there will be a demand for one!
I so agree with Rocking the Boat. I’ve seen the movie once and my drama school performance, and both times it stopped the show. What a song!
Hmm, so many faves have been mentioned already . . .I saw a production of Guys and Dolls at Arena Stage here in DC about three years ago, and the actor playing Nicely Nicely outshone Stubby Kaye with his performance.
Since nobody’s mentioned a Sondheim show yet, I’d have to nominate Christine Baranski’s performance of “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd at the Kennedy Center last year. Absolutely stunning.
And Nana Visitor’s version of “Roxie” in Chicago at the National Theatre in 1999 definitely stopped the show with massive applause (and IMO she should have played the role in the move because her voice and performance wiped the floor with Renee Zellweger).
I always thought that that opening number from the Actuarial musical was brilliant.
work of genius if you ask me.
And if we’re nominating film showstoppers (although IMO they should be ineligible because you can’t stop a film with a performance), I’d have to pick Cheryl Barnes singing “Easy to be Hard” in Hair. Like Jennifer Holliday (good call, Biggirl!), Barnes packs a lifetime of pain into a three minute song and makes it hers.
I assume you are referring to the number when that group of Germans begins to sing that song that contains the line "O Fatherland, Fatherland, show us a sign…Absolutely!!! That song gets the award for creepiest showstopper, at least. The reaction of the old man, who remains seated[who was probably a WW1 veteran] as he sees his countrymen, and women, by ones and twos and small groups, stand up and start singing, raised my hackles the first time I saw the movie. Subsequent screenings are no different. His almost-shamefaced and world-weary visage let’s you know, “here we go again” and “didn’t we learn ANYTHING the first go-round.”
From “My Fair Lady,” I nominate “I Could Have Danced All Night.” (I admit to singing this one in the shower at full volume).
Heh. Me too, plnr. In the shower, no on can hear you do show tunes.
“Brush Up Your Shakespeare” from Kiss Me Kate. Note that in it, the two men go offstage and couple of times and return to sing additional verses. In tryouts, the audience literally did not want to let the show continue unless they heard more. Cole Porter had to write the additional verses.
“Cabaret” – Especially in the version I saw with Kate Shindle playing Sally. Her version blew away Minelli’s – angry and defiant.
“Oklahoma”
“There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” from *Annie Get Your Gun.
Just to set the record straight, it’s called “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.” (I don’t know how to translate that into German, though.) And it is definitely a creepy, horrifying song.
I was just in a production of Cabaret and always heard from audience members that they were so freaked out by that number that they almost couldn’t bring themselves to applaud.
I guess I had a more specific definition of a showstopper: In my mind, I was thinking it was a number performed by someone who was not one of the “main characters” – maybe in a cameo role, but it was so good that it could overshadow what the leads were doing.
A lot of the ones mentioned fall into this category: Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat, You Gotta Have Heart, and The Pharaoh Song are some of my favorite examples.
Queen of the Night’s aria from The Magic Flute
or, along slightly different lines
Springtime for Hitler
Tom Lehrer described the audience reaction to “The Old Dope Peddler” in the show Tomfoolery as being the same as after “Tomorrow belongs to me” in Cabaret, sort of “you really don’t expect us to applaud that do you?”
Only kinda sorta called “Tomorrow Belongs To Me”. Certainly Fred Ebb wrote the lyrics that give it that title but my understanding is a real genuine German anthem, popular in Nazi Germany, provided the music.
It wasn’t as gut wrenching in the original play as the setup with the Nazi youths didn’t happen. It’s sung by several characters (twice in the first act alone) to counterpoint the political realities with personal aspirations.
Of course in the current version it ends with the emcee dropping his robe to reveal a swastika painted on his bare bum. (Um… John Stamos… bare bum… I love art.)
Now that’s a spoiler. Wonder who does his makeup each night?