In the summer heat of 1977, my parents took me to see Shirley Jones in an open-air production of The Sound of Music at the St. Louis Muny. As the first-act curtain came down on "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," the magic of the theater held me in its spell. I spent the intermission restless with anticipation, and it wasn't from the humidity: I was in the thrall of an Act One Finale for the first time. My experience that night set the gold standard for what the end of a show's first act could be. After that, I would lie in wait for every musical's Act One Finale, ready to judge the comparative strength of its goose-bump factor. The Act One Finale can be a triumphant realization or a cry of anguish, an outbreak of yearning or love's affirmation. It is an emotional turning point in an attempt to convincingly demonstrate that change is possible. Simply -- it's about hope. The Act One Finale is a crucial element in any show because its mission is to get you back for Act Two. It plays on the show's built-up tension, whets your appetite for climactic closure and then tells you to come back in fifteen minutes! How it accomplishes this is the art of the matter. I looked at more than 250 Broadway Act One Finales for Finishing the Act. After narrowing them down to a well-rounded forty, I ultimately chose those twenty songs which hold particular meaning for me. Working side by side with a group of world-class Broadway arrangers, orchestrators, conductors and musicians, I "restaged" each finale, sometimes by interweaving it with another or more, hopefully revealing some of the magic that led me to the songs in the first place. You will have heard some of my selections before; I invite you to join me in their rediscovery. Others may be brand-new to your ears, as some were to me. I hope my enthusiasm for the Broadway Act One Finale proves infectious. - Craig Rubano