You Picked: Broadway's Best Moments

"When I was 13, I went and saw Tommy for my birthday, third row center. I could feel the heat from the pinball machine explosion. It's what made me stop being ashamed of enjoying musicals." -- Nick Jones

"1969, London's West End, Ginger Rogers as Mame. For a young, gay, 15-year-old musical lover it was like going to heaven! To this day, Mame remains my favorite musical, and I've seen it often." -- G Jak Klinikowski

"In 1994... that's when I saw Miss Saigon for the first time. I have to say that the moment it was revealed that Kim and Chris had a son, and Kim got down on one knee to call him out, and this little thing of a boy came running out on stage and into his mother's arms... I lost it. Tears flowed from that moment, to the moment she sings, 'I'd Give My Life for You,' to the final tragic ending." -- Rick Gipprich Jr.

"A Chorus Line at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. My freshman year at college, it was 1977. After Paul was carried off stage for hurting himself and the cast sings 'What I Did for Love,' I thought I'd achieved musical theater nirvana." -- Brian Beneat

"A Chorus Line came through and I went. It blew me away even in the top balcony, the story [was] amazing, plus I was just starting to understand the feelings I was having about men. Then "What I Did for Love." And then the finale. I walked to my car mesmerized sat down and just started to cry for something so wonderful!" -Richard R. Simpson

"There were so many magical moments, it's difficult to recount them all, but I have to say my most moving moment came in Les Miserables near the end when the ghost of Fantine appears to accompany Val Jean to heaven. It was floods of tears all around." -- Mark Andersen

"Seeing Patti LuPone in Gypsy was one of the finest nights of my life. Mama Rose is one of the most fascinating and emotionally devastating characters in all of musical theatre, and no other performance compared to Patti's in depth and intensity." -- Dan Walden

"The Tony Award winning Falsettos was the first Broadway musical about a gay family, where nobody was in drag. As the story unfolded about a middle-aged man, played by openly gay Michael Rupert, coming out of the closet, losing his boyfriend to AIDS, and explaining the loss to his son. I wept, passing tissues with a row of complete strangers who weren't such strangers by the end of the play." -- Mark Thomas

"Rent: over-miked, over-amped, screaming, face-contorted, doubled-over as if constipated with 'feeling' angst." -- Teague Morris

"Cats, because who wants to hear the word jellicle 467 times in the first 20 minutes of the show?" -- Wil Bernstrom