The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less
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You’ve seen the Tonys, you have a subscription to Playbill, and you follow @backstagecast on Instagram – and you’re itching to see this autumn’s best plays. You do not need us to tell you what the hottest tickets on Broadway are or which sold-out West End show is currently causing a sensation. Instead, we recommend some underrated performances, draw your attention to lesser-known plays and share some tips on finding less costly tickets. See you at the box office!

By Fiona Brutscher

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Persephone Bound
While Hadestown, a unique musical take on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, is still a sensation on Broadway, Montréal is staging a different contemporary retelling of a legend first written by Ovid. Persephone Bound, a drama incorporating elements of aerial dance, music and poetry, reimagines the goddess of fertility’s trip through the underworld as a young woman’s tale of surviving a sexual assault and navigating the ensuing trial. The Underworld and the River Styx, two of the settings of her ordeal, also feature heavily in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, tying the Broadway hit and the Canadian experimental play together.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Doll's House
A Doll’s House, Part 2 was one of the most-produced plays of 2019 in America. The “sequel” to Ibsen’s drama has had a successful Broadway run and was staged in 12 different productions across the USA this year. Next opportunities to see it include performances in Northville, Michigan; Warwick, Rhode Island and White River Junction, Vermont, giving many theatre-goers outside the Big Apple a chance to find out what made this play such a popular choice. If you prefer to get your back story straight, you can see Henrik Ibsen’s classic on both sides of the pond, in A Doll’s House at the Lyric Hammersmith in London or at the Writer’s Theatre in Chicago.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Slave Play
Slave Play, a daring exploration of sexuality and race, is currently sweeping from Off- to On-Broadway on a tide of accolades. Jeremy O. Harris, the youngest black male playwright ever to bring a play to the Great White Way, is certain to have a hit on his hands – and tickets are sure to be scarce and expensive. Don’t let box office difficulties prevent you from being part of this important conversation – seek out other plays on the topic of race relations in 20th century America instead. The Public Theater is staging a revival of a For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. The “choreopoem” tells the stories of seven women of colour through poetry, song and movement. In a similar vein, but on a slightly lighter note, Sistas at St. Luke’s Theater “celebrates African-American women across the decades” through pop songs performed by a group of women clearing out the family matriarch’s attic after her death.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Baby Reindeer
Just because you didn’t make it to Edinburgh this year doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the Fringe Festival highlights. Just don’t miss your chance to catch the best performers now, fresh off their Fringe discovery and before they hit the seriously big time. This season’s one to catch is Baby Reindeer by Richard Gadd. The comedian – or perhaps “former comedian,” if his current offerings are anything to go by – tells of an excruciating personal experience that had audiences squirming in their seats and critics applauding the original show. You have the chance to make up your own mind while the performance is at London’s Bush Theatre for one month.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Royal Shakespeare
With the value of the pound yo-yoing around record lows, but before Brexit potentially makes UK travel more difficult, now is the ideal time to see a play by the world’s most-performed playwright in his home country. In Stratford-upon-Avon, the Royal Shakespeare Company is wrapping up a season showing the Merchant of Venice and recently premiered the bard’s rarely performed play King John. Gallery seats start at £5.00. In London, the Globe Theatre’s cheapest (standing) tickets are available at the same low price – for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry IV Part 1+2 and Henry V.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
National Theatre Live
Still kicking yourself that you missed the stage version of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag when she first performed it at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe? Well, that live experience – and the bragging rights that come with having discovered the one-woman show before it became an Emmy-winning TV sensation – are gone. Getting tickets for this year’s ensuing Off-Broadway and West End revivals was almost impossible, but now you have one more chance to see the dramedic monologue on the big stage, via the silver screen. National Theatre Live broadcast the 12 September performance live from London’s Soho Theatre to cinemas all over the world and is offering “encores“ in October.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
National Theatre Live
In fact, National Theatre Live, Royal Shakespeare Company Live, Metropolitan Opera Live in HD and other pioneering live streaming programmes offered by theatres have been bringing an amazing range of stage performances to a cinema near you for years. For a fraction of the price of a Broadway ticket, you get the best seat in the house, often for productions starring the biggest names in theatre and cinema. In addition, streaming services like Digital Theatre, PBS Great Performances, Broadway HD and Cennarium deliver unlimited stage performances to your home entertainment system. Obviously, none of these can quite match the thrill of seeing an evening’s entertainment unfold before your eyes as a live audience member, but they’re a great way to catch up on shows you’ve missed, especially if you live far from the cities where world-class theatre happens.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Christmas Pantomime
If you’re willing to travel for kid-friendly holiday entertainment and aren’t from the UK or Ireland, chances are you’re blissfully unaware of the weird and wonderful world of the Christmas pantomime. Cities all over the British Isles stage variations on this highly formulaic, extremely popular form of musical comedy. Not only are tickets usually cheaper than those for a “regular” musical, you can bring along even the youngest children without worrying about them making noise – their laughing, shouting and “boo”-ing will be drowned out by the enthusiastic participation of the entire audience. The production values may lean a little more gaudy, the performances are rarely subtle and this is not the place to come looking for woke cultural commentary, but you’ll get plenty of entertainment bang for your buck and if nothing else, it will be a truly novel cultural experience.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Hamilton
The good news: Hamilton tickets are no longer impossible to find. The bad news: Broadway tickets for the show are still pretty expensive and bargains hard to come by. In the past four years, the historical rap musical became a Broadway and pop culture sensation, swept the Tony and Olivier Awards and even won a Grammy, then began to tour and expand to other American cities, followed by the first international production, in London’s West End. As a result, the show has been staged everywhere from California to Colorado, with varying prices. With a German-language version in the works for 2020 and an Australian production announced for 2021, the options – and price ranges – are likely to improve further. As a rule of thumb, look for tickets in smaller cities.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less.
Stomp
British percussion troupe Stomp and their eponymous show have been touring for almost 30 years, but the upcycling attitude at the heart of the concept suddenly makes it seem particularly zeitgeist-y. After all, making music with matchboxes, brooms, bin lids and other assorted refuse can easily be described as zero-waste performance – and most props really are upcycled. The American production has been at the Off-Broadway Orpheum Theatre since 1994, while the touring cast takes the show on the road. In New York, tickets start at $60, but in Italy, France and Germany, they can be had for as little as €20.

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The (Next) Big Ticket: How To Catch Great Theatre Shows For Less

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