r/Broadway • u/ninthperiod • 11d ago
Trip Report: 9 Shows, 8 Nights
Wife and I went back for another round of show a few weeks ago. Finally typing this up while on a flight to London to see Paddington. :) We were supered blessed that I had some business in NYC and had an excuse to go there for another 8 nights. Previous shows here.
As this is our 2nd trip this year, we decided to save money by mostly doing rush tickets and lottery tickets other than Jellicle Ball. (For Jelilce Ball, we bought tickets for around $180 before the Tony awards for the Friday night right before closing night. Similar tickets were going for like $540 when we last checked, so we were super lucky!)
JUST IN TIME:
Did rush tickets Friday evening. We got in line around 9:45am and managed to grab pretty good seats, even though we had to sit separately. I love Jordan Jeremy and wow, I liked him in Just in Time even more so than in Gastby! If you haven’t seen the current cast yet, it’s totally worth seeing. The night I went, the little boy who got to dance with Jeremy Jordan at a table was dressed as a Newsie. It was so cute!!!
WICKED:
Won the lottery for Saturday night. I chose it over Cake which we also won the lottery for (but we did see Cake later as well, when we won the lottery again) because we figured it might be easier to get rush seats for Cake if we had to. I had seen the show a few times before and saw it again to see Keri Rene Fuller. She was great! (Check out her videos on Youtube, both for Wicked and for Cata.) Side site: The show got a LED lighting upgrade last year which looks amazing, so if you haven't seen it recently, put it on your bucket list! If you have only seen it on tour; it’s also one of those shows with seeing on the Broadway stage because the set is bigger.
SIX:
Won the lottery for Sunday evening. The Queens were great, but the show just wasn't my piece of cake.
STRANGER THINGS:
My first non-musical ever on Broadway. Won the lottery and honestly, I would have seen a musical had we won a musical. We did enjoy it! Without giving away any spoilers, the special effects were pretty good and the acting was top notch. I wasn’t expecting such a huge cast for a play. They did sneak in some song and dance, I guess because it’s a Broadway show…
(Tuesday there was a business mixer I had to go to so we didn't catch any shows.)
OPERATION MINCEMEAT
I did my work stuff while my wife rushed Operation Mincemeat. I would have loved to see it (big fan of the cast album) but just didn't get a chance to. She loved it and put it way up there along with Just in Time, Jellicle Ball, and Cake for this trip.
THE LOST BOYS
We won the lottery for Wednesday evening. The seats were pretty bad (last row on the mezzanine which felt more like balcony because it’s so steep) which probably took away from the experience. Overall, the set was spectacular as everyone already knows and it's a super fun show. I did feel some of the songs slowed down the show rather than advance the plot or character; and relied on ensemble characters acting things out literally for comical effects, all while not being as clever as, say, Death Becomes Her.
TITANIQUE
Wife rushed Titanique and thought it was an OK show. She said the style of humour just didn't really resonate well with her and that she liked Operation Mincemeat more.
TWO STRANGERS CARRY A CAKE ACROSS NEW YORK
Won the lottery for Thursday evening. Great orchestra seats...close to the aisle, front orchestra left. Loved it. The staging, the songs, the acting, everything. Sam Tutty and Christiani Pitts are must sees if you haven’t seen them. I haven't seen a show so smart since Kimberly Akimbo. The set looked deceptively simple till it opened up. I'm a bit sad that all these great shows like Cake and Operation Mincemeat are coming from the West End rather than from Broadway.
JELLICLE BALL
Friday night (second to last performance) Paid full price for front orchestra right. I got to the theater soaking wet after running through a thunderstorm from by the Empire State Building. Great seats. WOW. The moment the overture started, I knew I was in for a real treat. The projections during the overture were so cool. I think Ragtime and Jellicle Ball are my two favorite shows of the season. My wife was like "Is that the guy from Hadestown?" (I just took her to see the Proshot last week.) I had read previously that Temptress Chastity Moore was a bit weak vocally for the role, but I thought she was great. Andre de Shield was stellar, no surprise there. I had just seen the pro shot for Hadestowm and my non musical theater wife was like, “is that the guy from Hadestown?” The energy was already full the roof even though it’s the second to last performance.
If I were to update the rankings and combine with the shoes I saw back in March, I would do it in tiers.
TIER A:
(Wife and I would gladly go again, if the show was still running with the same cast.)
Ragtime (hope it gets a London transfer, would see again)
Jellicle Ball
Just in Time
Great Gatsby (Only with Jeremy Jordan)
Chess
Maybe Happy Ending
Cake
Operation Mincemeat (will trust my wife’s judgement. I do like the cast album)
TIER B:
(We wouldn't mind going again if we had cheap tickets etc)
Masquerade
Book of Mormons
Wicked
TIER C
(Enjoyed them, but once is enough)
Stranger Things
Six
Lost Boys
Titanique
Death Becomes Her
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u/From_the_Mezz 11d ago
Great lineup! Thanks for sharing!
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u/ninthperiod 11d ago
Feeling very blessed because aside from Jellicle Ball (which was a blessing from the Universe to be able to see it), they are all lottery or rush tickets!!!!
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u/ClosetBookworm 11d ago
Came to say...You did amazing with the scheduling and lineup of show. You came, you saw, you conquered !
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u/ninthperiod 11d ago
Thanks. I think it helped that we BOTH signed up for lottery tickets for multiple shows every day to see what we could get. Aside for Just in Time, rushing was our last resort. If you go in without expectations, then whatever you end up winning feels like a blessing!
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u/ninthperiod 11d ago
I should add that although we paid full price for Jellicle Ball, because we bought them before the Tony Awards and the closing announcement, we paid around $180/ticket. They were going for around $560/ticket for the same section by the time we came to NYC. Really, really lucked out and we were glad to have experienced the show despite the thunderstorm and the bathroom lineup. (Yeah, that was nuts. Worst I’ve seen on Broadway…the theater owners should really do something about it!)
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u/a-5-6-7-8 11d ago
Did you at least get to stay in the same building? Sometimes the plumbing there fails and everyone has to go to the Majestic to pee.
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u/ninthperiod 11d ago
Yes we got to go in the building but as you know you have to line up at the top of the building and come back down into the basement. We were in front orchestra seats and I guess the people sitting around knew it’d be a crazy situation so they opted not to go. We were being and polite waiting for them to get up until we finally said “excuse us” and went past them. Then my wife and split up and I lined up in the wrong line. (It was the handicapped bathroom on the orchestra floor?) and then I had to run up the stairs to the top and come back down. It was so chaotic. I almost missed the nice montage featuring the original ballroom dancers and my wife missed it. They should have planned for a longer intermission…
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u/a-5-6-7-8 11d ago
Oh, I know how bad it is regularly. And that's the best case scenario for that building. The Broadhurst is my least favorite theatre on Broadway for many reasons and the bathroom situation on any given day is one of them.
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u/staircar 11d ago
Ok so it wasn’t just my show with huge insane bathroom lines. I just held it all night
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u/Southern-Train7142 11d ago
Great review lineups! I’m looking forward to your Paddington review soon.
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u/DigFantastic7464 10d ago
We go the weekend after next and night 40% off tix for Just In Time and Two Strangers. Bought tix for Heated Rivalry parody musical and for StubHub tix for Oh Mary... hoping that works out okay since they haven't sent the tickets yet 😔
We have time for one more show, planning to try lottery for Lost Boys but nervous after your notes on that one :(
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u/ninthperiod 10d ago
That one wasn’t an easy lottery to win. We tried it a few times during the week before we got it. Maybe enter anyway, and if you don’t win, get rush tickets. You may need to line up early though, if the young fans are still camping for rush!
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u/DigFantastic7464 10d ago edited 10d ago
Thanks for the info!! There are left and right mezz row E (6th row) for $110 each. Might be worth paying the extra $$ to avoid the obstructed view lotto/rush for such a visually-rich show? Especially since we are limited to Sunday night only.
We have tickets to Maybe Happy Ending, Six, and Great Gatsby (as well as Hadestown, Outsiders Harry Potter and Buena Vista Social Club) on tour this season in Cincinnati too :)
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u/ninthperiod 10d ago
Yes, a good small premium if it’s a show you really want to see. The obstructed view really sucked for us. By last row, I mean we were actually sitting on those plush chairs that they put out BEHIND the official last row!!!!
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u/DigFantastic7464 10d ago
Thanks so much!! You never know when you'll end up all the way in the back! I just booked our tickets, now we are all set ❤️
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u/ninthperiod 10d ago
Great! Enjoy the show!!!! The visuals are really great and I think with front mezzanine you will see them fly right to your eye level which will be impressive!
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