Reprise Medley

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A musical scene, usually towards the end of the show if not the finale ultimo, containing a whole bunch of reprises of different songs from the show, usually to tie up different plot threads.

This trope is for Musical Theatre and musical films only!

Examples of Reprise Medley include:

Anime

  • Macross Frontier is capped off with the Nyan-Nyan Service Medley, which reprises most of the songs from throughout the series and takes up pretty much the entire second half of the last episode (it's seven and a half minutes long).

Film

Music

  • The stage version of Pink Floyd's The Wall has a Reprise Medley called "The Last Few Bricks" right before "Goodbye Cruel World" to give the stage hands time to put the last few bricks of the wall in place.

Theatre

  • "Finale" from In the Heights contains snippets from the title song, "Piragua", "When You're Home", and a never before heard song being played on a record player.
  • The penultimate scene of Brigadoon has reprises of "Come To Me, Bend To Me," "The Heather On The Hill," "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean," "From This Day on" and "Down On MacConnachy Square." These are listed collectively as "Reprises." The show goes on to end with a reprise of the title song.
  • The finale ultimo of HMS Pinafore consists of five reprises: "Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen," "I am the Captain of the Pinafore," "I'm called Little Buttercup," "I am the monarch of the sea" and "He is an Englishman." Most other Gilbert and Sullivan shows only have one or two reprises at the end; Utopia, Ltd has none.
  • Don Quixote's death in Man of La Mancha is preceded by "Dulcinea," "The Impossible Dream" and "Man Of La Mancha" reprised in succession.
  • The "Final Sequence" in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street goes through quite a few reprised snippets of previous songs (pretty much all of them Dark Reprises) as the play reaches its climax, including "Not While I'm Around", "Pretty Women", "My Friends", "Poor Thing", "A Little Priest", and "The Barber and His Wife".
  • The Phoenix Wright musical has one at the end of act one consisting of "The Truth Reborn", "My Rule", and "I Love You", and another (consisting of "The Truth Reborn" and "I Believe In You") as the finale ultimo. (Those may not seem like they're using very many songs, but the show recycles so heavily that there are in fact only four distinct songs, total.)
  • On the original cast album of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the finale is a Reprise Medley, yet the show did not end this way. The reason for this departure is unclear.
  • Les Misérables has a great one. The final sequence starts with an original melody, then segues into 'Bring Him Home' then when Fantine appears the music for 'I've seen your face before' the tune Valjean sang when he first met her is used, then music from the barricade 'my god, they've run away' is used, then 'I've seen your face before' again then 'Come To Me/On My Own' is reprised almost entirely, ending in a triumphant reprise of 'Do You Hear The People Sing?' And it is awesome.
  • The final scene of Phantom of the Opera reprises Point of No Return, Angel of Music, Masquerade, All I Ask Of You, and finally, Music of the Night.
  • "Looking Good", the closing song of the Theatre Works Palo Alto and Second Stage Theatre versions of Vanities: A New Musical, ends with brief reprises of "Hey There Beautiful" and "Setting Your Sights"(only in the latter production). "Letting Go", the alternate finale ultimo (used in Pasadena Playhouse and ACT's productions so far), also does this somewhat.
  • The "Finale Ultimo" of the stage musical of Aladdin includes reprises of "Somebody's Got Your Back", "A Whole New World", and "Arabian Nights"(the Final Reprise deleted from the original film but used in The King of Thieves). Before that, the first act ends with a medley of "Friend Like Me" and "Proud of Your Boy", and the Dark Reprise of "Prince Ali and a few others are incorporated into the "Wedding Day Suite".
  • The Finale Ultimo of Hello, Dolly! is a medley of the title song, "Dancing", "It Only Takes A Moment" and "Put on Your Sunday Clothes".
  • The finale of Cabaret has a Dark Reprise of "Willkommen" framing snippets of various other tunes, more of which are sung on the original cast album than in the show.
  • The final scene of The Most Happy Fella ends with reprises of the letter song, "My Heart Is So Full Of You" and the title song.
  • "Finale" from Wicked reprises "Sentimental Man", "No One Mourns the Wicked", and "For Good".
  • "Reprises" from A Little Night Music has segments of 'Soon', 'You Must Meet My Wife', 'A Weekend in the Country', and 'Every Day a Little Death', before closing with full reprises of 'Send in the Clowns' and 'Night Waltz'.

Video Games

  • Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, and Sonic & Knuckles use medleys of their stage themes during their credits.
  • Mega Man 6 also does this for its credits music.
  • Mother 3 has 16 Melodies, which is this for the entire Earthbound series.
  • Final Fantasy VI reprises each character's Leitmotif in a medley during the "book" escape sequence.
  • "Roll Call", the credits music for Halo 3, reprises the Halo chant, "Farthest Outpost", the Arbiter's theme, "Under Cover of Night", and "In Amber Clad". "From the Vault", heard in Halo: Reach's Tribute Room, is a similar medley.
  • The music for the final level of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is a medley of the Fort Schmerzen and Nordhausen leitmotifs from the first game and a powered-up version of the Allied Assault Main Theme.
  • "The Genesis," the final boss battle music for Persona 4, reprises both "Reach Out to the Truth" and "I'll Face Myself."
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has the 'Staff Credits' track, which includes the title theme, Aryll's Theme, Zelda's Lullaby, 'The Great Sea', and the series' main theme (among other nods).