Heather Allen

I’ve been extremely lucky these past couple months. I was able to go to three Broadway shows and one off-Broadway play. All of these shows were spectacular and special in their own way and I would not have been able to go if it weren’t for some luck.

In March, I entered to win discounted tickets to The Book of Mormon on Twitter by re-tweeting the specified tweet that day to win tickets for the next night’s show. It was my first time tweeting so I didn’t expect anything to come of it! Lo and behold! I paid $60 for two tickets. My friend and I sat off to the left of the stage (she sat one row directly behind me, as discount tickets go, it could have been worse), and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Besides, the actors were so great, I didn’t think twice about the seating arrangements, my full attention was on the production. I highly recommend Book of Mormon! It’s the most hilarious show I’ve seen; South Park humor, great songs, and a fun cast.  

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The following Sunday, I was treated to the off-Broadway play, The Woodsman, based on the life of the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. These tickets were a gift, but from what I can gather, my gifter got a good deal on Groupon for $30 each. We sat in the second row! I was so engrossed! I wrote about it, and I still highly recommend it to anyone.

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And this week, I saw two shows two days in row!

For Tqwana’s pre-birthday celebration, she arranged (i.e. bought, an we paid her back) tickets for four people to see Les Misérables through the TodayTix app. Better to get the discount tickets within a week of the show you want to see because the prices do go up. The price of the ticket was $47 each, but with the TodayTix fee, came out to $57/ticket. We ended up sitting in the mezzanine up at the top, but it didn’t take away from the experience. I had my reservations about seeing Les Miz because my impressions of the movie were not that great: I thought the movie dragged, the characters were boring (looking at you, Russell Crowe), and I didn’t really care about the French Revolution. BUT seeing it on stage changed my mind completely. It’s a different experience altogether. The music and the acting, the songs, how the stage is utilized, it was all magical.

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The next day I saw Something Rotten, a musical I can only describe as a parody of all other musicals. My co-worker invited me to go after winning the online lottery for discounted tickets, $40 each!  There was a great song, aptly titled “A Musical” with a verse about Les Miz  that had me rolling because I had just seen the show! This was on par for best comedy with Book of Mormon because of how spot on the writing was. There were so many inside jokes about Shakespeare and Broadways shows I’m sure I didn’t catch them all! The wonderful, amazing part about this experience was that we were in the FRONT ROW. Holy cow, what a sensory overload. The actors look at you and wink, spit flies every time they belt out a song, and the cast is smiling and you can’t help but smile back.

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My first Broadway show was when I was 13 or 14, The Producers, and I loved it, but I had not been able to see another New York based show for over 10 years because there was always that money barrier. (I did see Wicked in 2011 at the Kennedy Center in D.C., so I’m grateful for that experience as well.) Now I know that there are cheaper ways to see shows where I don’t have to pay full price. In one of my recent blog posts, I wrote about my financial, family, and fun goals. One of my fun goals was to see a Broadway show within the next year. Now I’ve seen enough to last me another 10 years!

Except Hamilton, I need to see Hamilton.

Next week, I’m going to see Head of Passes, a play starring Phylicia Rashad, the tickets were free!