Examples of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished in theatre.
- In Hamilton, Alexander tries to save his reputation from ruin and clear his name of treason charges by releasing the Reynolds Pamphlet, in which he denies siphoning money from the government because he was using his own money to pay blackmail to James Reynolds for sleeping with his wife. It goes about as well as you'd expect. Given that Lin-Manuel Miranda has stated that the purpose was to have Hamilton go through all the right steps in thinking of how to clear his name, and come to the absolute wrong conclusion, it may not count out-of-universe, but to Hamilton, in certainly does.
- Similar to the below Les Miserables example, Angelica (Hamilton's sister in law) hides her feelings for Hamilton because she knows that her sister Eliza and Hamilton love each other very much. She even goes as far as to say that if she told her sister her feelings, Eliza would step aside, but that she loves her sister too much to do that to her.
- John Laurens is not only fighting for the freedom of his country, but also for those in the bondage of slavery. In a scene just before the Act I finale, a letter from Laurens's father reveals that Laurens, at command of a battalion of escaped slaves, was killed in a battle with British forces after the battle of Yorktown (meaning that the war was already over) and that all the slaves had been returned to their masters.
- When his eldest son Philip comes to him for advice on how to fight in a duel, Hamilton gives him the best advice he can and even lets him borrow his pistols. Philip is subsequently killed in the duel following his father's advice, sending his parents into tandem BSODs.
- Valjean, the main character of Les Misérables, is a magnet for this. A line in the prologue mentions that he was put in prison for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister's son (the next line clarifies that he was only given five years for the theft and 14 years for trying to repeatedly escape prison, but five years for bread is still pretty steep). While serving as Mayor years later (with a new name), he saves a man from being crushed under a cart, and Javert immediately begins to suspect that he is Jean Valjean, the escaped convict from years before. When he confesses that he is in fact Jean Valjean (and saves the innocent man accused in his place), Javert attempts to arrest him. Years later, he and his adopted daughter try to give money to the poor, and are almost robbed by the Thenardiers, who try to rob him again that night. It's a miracle that Valjean never gave up on his vow to always do good, since doing so almost always turned out terribly for him.
- When the Bishop gives Valjean free room and board for the night — which no one else would do because of Valjean's nature as an ex-con - he is repaid by Valjean's attempt to rob the convent of their silver and escape in the middle of the night.
- Fantine is this combined with a Trauma Conga Line. She's just a woman trying to support her daughter, but when this is discovered, she's thrown out of the factory where she works and is forced to become a prostitute, where she still sends everything she earns to her daughter. When she tries to defend herself against rape, she is immediately arrested by Javert for attacking a passing gentlemen (her rapist, now claiming innocence).
- In a rare case where the good deed was the punishment, Eponine agrees to help Marius meet Cosette. Little does Marius know the feelings Eponine has for him, and that having Eponine find Cosette for him was like torture for her. She's eventually killed while trying to deliver a letter to Cosette from Marius.
- Gavroche tries to help out the revolutionaries by climbing over the barricade and picking ammo off of dead soldiers. For his troubles, he's shot by snipers and slowly and painfully dies.
- The revolutionaries, a group of possible-Well Intentioned Extremists, are trying to free the poor and downtrodden people of France from the shackles of poverty. All but one (Marius) dies, and even Marius is left in a Survivor's Guilt-induced Heroic BSoD.
- The end of Act I of Newsies has Jack contemplating running away to Santa Fe, Crutchie taken to The Refuge, and the rest of the Newsies beaten senseless and forced to return to work — all for trying to strike against an unfair raise in the price of newspapers. Katherine is also blacklisted by every newspaper in the city for covering the Newsie strike.
- In Twisted Jafar works tirelessly to improve the kingdom just because he sincerely wants everyone to be happy. (This also leads to him taking the job of Vizier.) Everyone hates him, his wife is taken by the Sultan to be a member of his harem and eventually dies, and the entire kingdom remembers him as the villain. Does that stop him from singlehandedly saving everyone? Nope.
- In the musical Violet, the title character comes to Flick's defense (as does Monty), and his attackers steal her suitcase as they flee.
- Wicked: Elphaba finally has enough of her misfortunes during the song "No Good Deed" and states the trope by name. By the time the musical number occurs, every major act of kindness or benevolence Elphaba's ever tried has blown up in her face. One of the more egregious examples came when her enchanting of her crippled sister Nessarose's jeweled shoes enabled Nessa to walk, just in time to have her heart broken by the man she loved, and in a jealous rage, snatch up the very same book that gave her the use of her legs and use it to cast a horrible curse on him, which Elphaba could only save him from by turning him into the Tin Man.No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well — well, look at what well-meant did!- And to quote the Tin Man: Holy Christ!It's due to her I'm made of tin, her spell made this occur. And for once I'm glad I'm heartless, I'll be heartless killing her!
- Plus, her attempt to save Fiyero's life also kinda backfired. She saves him from death, but her panicky desperate wording of the spell "Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain. When they beat him, let him feel no pain, let his bones never break" turns him into the Scarecrow.
- Which in itself is still a step up from what she thought had happened: With no way of knowing the outcome of her spell, she assumed it had failed completely and that he'd been beaten to death while crucified. No wonder she flipped.
- At school she rescues a poor Lion's life before he can be experimented on; he's later been convinced to blame her for his horrible fears and phobias.
- And to quote the Tin Man: Holy Christ!
- EPIC: The Musical: Pretty much all of Odysseus and his men's problems come from a spur-of-the-moment decision to spare the blinded cyclops Polyphemus rather than kill an already crippled and helpless enemy (it's worth noting in Homer's original works, this isn't framed as an act of mercy, Polyphemus is just too big to kill when he's awake). This allows Polyphemus to call on his father Poseidon to get revenge, leading to all the death, misery, and years of wandering that would follow. That said, it is a Downplayed Trope, because Odysseus could have spared the cyclops without revealing his true identity as the King of Ithaca, thus getting away scott free, so it's at least partly his own fault.
