curtain line

American  

noun

Theater.

1. the last line of a scene, act, etc., as in a play; tag line.

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Etymology

Origin of curtain line

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Audiences, actors, directors, everyone pressed Shaw to give the play a happy ending — the actress he had written Eliza for rebelled and wrote her own cutesy curtain line — but Shaw wouldn’t budge.

From New York Times • Mar. 27, 2018

What Ben doesn’t know, he tells us in the curtain line, “would fill a book”: he is a blank slate whose life in some way is only now beginning.

From New York Times • Apr. 5, 2011

This time, the curtain line was his: “Nobody’s perfect.”

From New York Times • Sep. 30, 2010

It had a curtain line first written by Oscar Wilde, and it opened Manhattan's latest theatre, the Craig, which is within speaking distance of elevated railways and trolleys on Seventh Avenue.

From Time Magazine Archive

Simpler was the change of the famous curtain line which was familiar to all theatergoers of New York ten or twelve seasons ago when "The Witching Hour" was one of the hits of the season.

From Pieces of Hate And Other Enthusiams by Broun, Heywood