Hot onstage kisses from the land of Broadway in honor of Valentine’s Day
Love is often a many-splendored thing on Broadway. Equally often, it is a non-splendored thing (oh, Alexander Hamilton … but we’ll endure that moment next season). And, not quite as often, love is turned inside-out, upside-down and simultaneously ridiculed and held to lofty heights (anyone seen Edward Albee’s The Goat recently?).
In honor of Cupid’s busy day, we’re looking at the Broadway love scenes to look forward to for the rest of this season.
Alert: spoilers ahead for those of you who haven’t already seen the shows.
If you read The Color Purple or saw the Whoopi Goldberg film, you know there’s a delicate, daring and sweet little kiss between Shug and Celie as the women embark upon an exploration of their relationship. In the show, it inspires Celie to start the touching duet, “What About Love?”
There’s hardly a 40-something alive who saw Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner in the movie The Bodyguard who doesn’t remember the scarf-and-sword scene. The sexual tension, well, you could cut with a knife. *Ahem, sword.* So, there’s plenty of tension to spread throughout a musical featuring Deborah Cox as Rachel Marron, who, as you and her bodyguard Frank Carter must discover, has an irresistible charm.
Ahhhhhh … the hills are alive with the sound of Captain Von Trapp finally kissing Maria in The Sound of Music and Carole King’s romantic encounters in Beautiful—the Carole King Musical.
Some of our other favorite onstage smooches from shows that have played The Straz before include Cinderella
…and, of course, what’s more romantic than The Book of Mormon’s duet “Baptize Me”?
Oh, and we can’t forget Elphaba.
After all, nothing says “I love you” like a tendency to get a little wicked.