Lifestyle
How to buy cheap(er) Broadway tickets
Robert Downey Jr. is on Broadway this fall.
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman/Lincoln Center Theater
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Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman/Lincoln Center Theater
It’s the time of year when people think about visiting New York City for the holidays — and maybe seeing a Broadway show. It’s an exciting season to do that, since celebrities are all over Broadway this year (Robert Downey Jr. is on stage until after Thanksgiving; George Clooney’s coming this spring. But there’s also Jim Parsons, Mia Farrow, Daniel Dae Kim, Kit Connor…).
Then again — you may be scared away by stories about $800 tickets.
As a former theater critic and a long-time arts reporter, the question I’m asked most often is: How can I get affordable tickets? I’ve steered friends, relatives and colleagues toward cheaper (if never cheap) seats. Here’s my best advice:
Be flexible, if you can.
Do you want to see a particular show (you’re a Sondheim fanatic, there’s a celebrity you love) or is it just that a Broadway show is on your bucket list? Are you flexible on dates and times? Do you care where you sit? If you can be flexible, you’ll have a better chance at finding less expensive tickets. Not every ticket costs hundreds of dollars. There are plenty of options below $100 each, especially if you’re open to seeing almost anything, or at least a wide variety of shows.
Ticket prices change depending on the day, the capacity of the theater and the seat — pricing can be fluid and depend on weekly popularity of a show. If you can, check prices for a few days and compare. The difference could be significant.
And then there are the dead times of year: January, February and September. Those are great times to buy a Broadway ticket. During these months, you can look out for Broadway Week, which offers 2-for-1 tickets, and Kids’ Night on Broadway, when a child is free with an adult, usually in February.
And then there’s seat location. Seats with an obstructed view or partial view (you may not be able to see the whole stage) and seats that are in back of the highest balcony will cost you less.
Where to look
Shows that are in previews — that is, before their opening date, when they’re still working out kinks and haven’t been reviewed by the mainstream media — are often less expensive. Shows that are struggling are often sold for less. Long-running shows (Chicago), may be priced much lower than a show that just won Best Musical at the Tony Awards (The Outsiders). Plays often cost less than musicals (though not when there are super-famous people in them).
If you want to see how ticket prices are trending, you can check out the weekly Broadway grosses, put out by the Broadway League, which details how full a theater was the previous week. A show that’s at 70% capacity is going to have lower-priced tickets than a show that’s regularly at 100% capacity. And yes, that means it’s not as popular at the moment — but it doesn’t mean you’ll like it less!
Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in Romeo + Juliet
Sam Levy/Romeo + Juliet
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Sam Levy/Romeo + Juliet
But what if your daughter really wants to see Kit Connor?
Are Broadway tickets ever sold at a discount? Yes. (Might not happen for this show, though!)
Discount codes: Discount codes are often available from New York Show Tickets, TheaterMania, BroadwayBox and Playbill. Some employers offer benefits like Working Advantage, which also has discounts. Some credit cards have special orchestra pricing. If you have a large family of 15 or more who are visiting and can book well in advance, you may be able to take advantage of group ticket pricing.
The lotteries: You can put your name in for tickets in advance and hope you’re the lucky winner – they usually run for one to four tickets and cost $30-40 per ticket. Bad news: you won’t be able to choose your tickets. Good news: most lotteries are now done online instead of waiting in line. Different productions use different lotteries, which may include TodayTix or Lucky Seat. Some lotteries are for the next day — others are for the next week — so you’ll need to visit the show website for details. You’ll have a very limited amount of time to respond if you’ve won, often about an hour, so be sure to check your email/texts regularly.
Rush tickets: Rush tickets are significantly discounted, day-of tickets. To buy them, go to the box office as soon as it opens on the day of the show (you may be able to get standing room tickets then, too.) These tickets are often taken from the remaining seats available, which means that you may not be able to sit with other members of your party. Pro tip: Buying tickets at the box office saves you ticketing fees, even if you are buying full-price tickets.
You can also buy discounted, same-day tickets through TodayTix or by going in person to one of TDF’s two locations: Duffy Square on Broadway at 47th St. in Times Square (look for the large red steps) or Lincoln Center (this one is inside the David Rubenstein Atrium, which makes it better for rainy days). Get there early, be prepared to wait in a long line, and (again!) be flexible.
Resale apps: Many resell sites hike up prices of tickets — though sometimes you can find cheap seats at the very last minute — if you are willing to wait it out. My colleague (and frequent theater-goer) Janet W. Lee recommends the ticket resell app Theatr, which sells for face value or less and often has last-minute deals.
See something Off Broadway — or wait for the road show
Many Broadway shows tour, probably to a place not far from your hometown. The sets may be scaled down, depending on the production, but the casts are terrific and the tickets cost considerably less. Or visit London! Though ticket prices even there have gone up, excellent seats for the most popular West End shows are around $150.
But also, consider Off Broadway! And Off Off Broadway! Some of the best theater in New York is not actually on Broadway, and the further you get from the Main Stem, the smaller and more intimate the experience and the less expensive the ticket. Productions that debut at the non-profit Off Broadway houses like the Public Theater and Second Stage often transfer to Broadway later, so you can tell all your friends, you “saw it when.” And commercial Off Broadway houses often have very popular, long-running shows that are worth seeing, like the current production of Little Shop of Horrors.
If you’re up for seeing Off Off Broadway shows, tickets can be as little as $11 with TDF’s “Go Off-Off and Beyond” membership, which has a one-time $5 fee.
Jim Parsons — and Katie Holmes and Zoey Deutch — are in Our Town on Broadway.
Daniel Rader/ Our Town
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Daniel Rader/ Our Town
For young theater-goers
There are many, many programs offering less expensive tickets for students or theatergoers under 35 or 40, including tickets in the $30-35 range at Roundabout, 2nd Stage, Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Playwrights Horizons. Some shows, like The Outsiders, have special rush ticket rates for people under a certain age.
Tips for locals
If you live in the area, you have many more options. You can put your name in for several lotteries weekly and look out for Broadway Week and Kids’ Night on Broadway. If you work for a non-profit, are a student, union member, retiree, veteran, government worker or fall into many other categories, you can sign up for the excellent TDF membership program for $35 a year. Membership gives you the option of buying steeply discounted tickets for Broadway, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway, with prices ranging from $11 to $60 each. Productions that are sold out will not show up on TDF, but it’s a great way to see shows in previews, shows drawing less of a crowd, or smaller (but often wonderful) productions.
If you don’t qualify for TDF, a good option is a “ticket papering service,” which discreetly fills seats for theaters (and often classical music or jazz concerts as well) to make them appear more popular. It’s simple — you sign up with a membership fee (usually around $100), pay a small fee (about $5 or so) per ticket, and go to the show on your best behavior. To find them, Google “ticket papering services” because they can come and go, but they include services like Play By Play, Theater Extras, Stagelight and Will Call Club. Ask around on social media sites like Reddit to see if a particular service generally has the kind of tickets that interest you.
And if you just want to see great theater and don’t care if it’s on Broadway? Consider a membership to one of the city’s excellent non-profit theaters, like the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova or Atlantic Theater Company.
Story edited by Meghan Sullivan.
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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