Five Points or Less

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Retirement In New York: A Theatre Lover's Dream

by Alan Miller on 7.12.10

When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? The Sunbelt? Boca Raton? Phoenix? Not me. For me, there’s only one place in which to retire – and that’s New York City.

Surprised? But why? Isn’t New York the ideal location for retirees? With a network of hospitals and medical facilities second to none, an inexpensive public transportation system that subsidizes and caters to the elderly and completely obviates the need for an automobile, affordable senior citizen residences and community centers, and ready availability of home delivery from pharmacies, supermarkets, restaurants and virtually any other services one might require, New York City really can’t be beat.

But that’s just the beginning. Presumably, you’ll want more than just convenient access to food, drugs, housing and medical care in your retirement years. What would you actually like to do? Well, if your interests are primarily physical – golf, tennis, hiking, swimming, biking - then Boca or Phoenix might be the best place for you. But if, like me, your idea of fun is directed more to the mental than the physical - continuing education, art exhibitions, museums, concerts, opera, theatre – then a traditional retirement community might not be the best place for you after all.

Sure, those resources exist in traditional retirement communities. But are they in a class with what New York has to offer? As this New Yorker would say: “Fuhgedabout it!” New York is in a class of its own. College courses and adult study programs offered to senior citizen auditors and retirees at low or no cost by Columbia University, the New School, Hunter College...continually changing installations at The Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, MOMA...days one might spend wandering in and out of the galleries of Soho, Tribeca and the East and West Villages...

And theatre - which, after all, is what this column is about. Other than the West End of London, there really is nothing in the world like Broadway. And off-Broadway. And off-off-Broadway. Admittedly, local community theatres in more traditional retirement cities and touring groups visiting those cities are something to be grateful for - if that’s where you find yourself. But they don’t compare to theatre in New York.

All true, you might say, but what of the cost? Isn’t theatre in New York prohibitively expensive? Don’t tickets to the leading Broadway shows cost upwards of $100 apiece – if you can even snag them at box office prices. And if you can’t, won’t scalpers, euphemistically known as ticket brokers, rip you off for hundreds of dollars more, to say nothing of those premium seats obscenely priced at $200, $250 or more by the theatres themselves? If you’re a retired Wall Street executive with a multi-million dollar retirement package, maybe it’s doable. But how is the typical retiree, living on a much smaller fixed income, supposed to manage it?

That’s where this column comes in. I’m convinced that one can readily afford the champagne of New York theatre on the more limited beer budget mandated by the typical retiree’s fixed income. And I’d like to show you how to do it.

Let’s start with Broadway. Right now, this is where you’ll find the biggest and brassiest musicals, including such long-running successes as Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys and Wicked, terrific revivals of some of the best loved shows of the past like South Pacific, West Side Story, La Cage Aux Folles and A Little Night Music, and such newer hits as Billy Elliott, Fela! and Memphis. And it’s where you’ll find some of the best straight plays by the world’s leading playwrights.

But what will it cost? Well, that depends on what you want to see, when you want to see it, where you want to sit and, perhaps most important of all, how and where you purchase your tickets. Here are some rough rules of thumb:

1. ALL TICKET PRICING IS NOT CREATED EQUAL
Don’t assume that the prices of tickets to all Broadway shows are the same. A center orchestra seat for a Saturday night performance of Billy Elliot, for instance, costs $141.50 at the box office while a comparable seat for The Phantom of the Opera costs “only” $121.50. So if there are several different shows you’re equally interested in seeing, check their prices before picking one, rather than just assuming that they’ll all cost the same.

2. SHOW DATE AND TIME MATTER
At one time, tickets to preview performances were significantly cheaper than tickets to performances once a show officially opened, tickets to musicals were more expensive than tickets to straight plays, seats in the orchestra cost more than seats in the front mezzanine, Friday and Saturday night seats cost much more than seats on all other nights of the week, and matinee performances cost much less than evening performances. That’s the way it once was but times have changed and these rules no longer apply. But it's not all bad - while there is now no difference between the price of an orchestra or front mezzanine seat for a Friday or Saturday night performance of Phantom and the price of a comparable ticket for a weekday night or Wednesday matinee (they’re all priced at $121.50), there is a huge difference in the price of that show’s cheapest seats at different times: a seat in the last two rows of the rear mezzanine costs $71.50 for a Friday or Saturday night performance but can be purchased for only $26.50 for a weekday night or Wednesday matinee performance. 

3. YOUR SEAT MATTERS
As we just suggested, where you sit can make a big difference to your pocketbook. Consider, for example, the range of seat prices for Phantom. A “premium seat” for a weekend performance of that show costs $201.50 at the box office and a “premium seat” for any other performance costs $166.50 (“premium seats” being those that the theatre deems to be the best in the house). By contrast, a good orchestra (or front mezzanine) seat, not considered “premium,” costs $121.50 for any performance. If you’re willing to sit further from the stage, a rear mezzanine seat for a weekend performance can be had for $76.50-$91.50. A seat in the first ten rows of the rear mezzanine for any other performance in the week costs $66.50-$76.50 and as little as $26.50 in the last two rows (if you’re able to breathe at that altitude!). 

4. TICKET BROKERS SELL OVERPRICED TICKETS
Avoid buying your tickets through a ticket broker. To be sure, if you use a broker, you can get great seats for virtually any show, including those presumably sold out, often at the last minute, and with minimal hassle, and that is a real advantage. The disadvantage, however, is that it will cost you an arm and a leg to do so. For instance, a center orchestra seat for Phantom (which, by the way is not sold out and for which tickets are readily available) would cost about $260 if purchased through a ticket broker – more than twice what it would cost at the box office.

5. BOX OFFICE = NO EXTRA FEES
You can buy your tickets at the box office and thereby avoid paying any service charges, if you are local and willing. It requires you to trek to the Theatre District and walk from one box office to another until you find the specific shows, tickets and dates that work best for you.

6. BUY TICKETS ONLINE OR OVER THE PHONE
Alternatively, you can buy the same tickets at the same price (plus a small surcharge) by phone or over the internet through a show’s authorized dealer, usually Telecharge (telecharge.com) or Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.com). Telecharge represents the majority of Broadway shows, and Ticketmaster represents the rest. Since it is so much easier to purchase tickets over the phone or internet, I’d suggest you go the internet route. The only disadvantage is that you will incur an additional surcharge of about $7 or $8 per ticket for the convenience of doing so. I think it’s worth it.

7. DISCOUNT CODES
You can also buy tickets at discount prices at the box office or through Telecharge or Ticketmaster by using the discount codes available for some 75% of Broadway shows at any given time. You can find those codes on the internet at several sites. Some are listed here at theasy.com and more may be found at broadwaybox.com and at theatermania.com. Here’s just one example: if you want to purchase ticket to La Cage Aux Folles, use code LCTMC53 and that it will enable you to purchase orchestra or front mezzanine seats for selected performances for $77.50-$82.50 – a discount of 38-43% from the regular box office price of $132.50.

8. THE TKTS BOOTH
Another way to purchase discount tickets in person is at the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) TKTS Booth in Times Square on the day of a show’s performance (or at the TKTS Booths in the South Street Seaport or in Downtown Brooklyn on the day of an evening performance and on the day before a matinee performance). These tickets are sold at discounts of 20-50% plus a $4 service charge per ticket and a wide variety of shows, usually including all but the very biggest hits, are generally available. The number of seats available for any one show are limited, however, so if there is a particular show you’re especially eager to see, try to get on line early. You can find the addresses of all three booths, directions to all three via public transportation, their hours of operation, and a list of the shows that were available during the prior week (which will give you an idea of what might be available but is no guarantee of their continued availability when you get there) at the TDF website (tdf.org).

9. DON'T FORGET TDF
TDF doesn’t just run the TKTS Booths; it also offers a membership program through which it sells tickets over the internet at even steeper discounts than those offered at the booths or through utilization of the various shows’ discount codes. Membership in this program is limited, in theory, only to certain groups but, in fact, there are so many classes that qualify for membership (including retirees, union members, teachers, students, civil service employees, performing arts professionals, staff members of not-for-profit organizations, clergy and members of the armed forces) that chances are you’ll find some way to qualify yourself. If you do qualify, it’s definitely worth your while to join at the annual membership rate of $30 (as some 80,000 other people already have). You can join right on the TDF site and once you join, you’ll have access to discounts of up to 70% on hundreds of shows annually. During the past year, for example, TDF members were offered tickets to many Broadway shows at prices of $37 a ticket or less. One caveat: you won’t be able to select your seats through this program and, occasionally, the seats you get may be further to the side or to the back than you might wish. In my experience, however, most TDF seats are just fine, usually (but not always) in the orchestra or front mezzanine. And the prices can’t be beat. If you’re really into theatre, I’d strongly urge you to join TDF, check out what’s being offered there on a daily basis, and act fast when you see something you like since tickets can go fast at these prices and offers change frequently.

10. RUSH/LOTTERIES
Finally, if you’ve got much more time and energy than money, if you like to take chances, and if you can handle disappointment with equanimity, you might take a shot at showing up at the box office a couple of hours before a show is scheduled to begin to participate in a lottery-like competition for deeply discounted Rush tickets (sometimes as cheap as $20 a seat) or for Standing Room Only tickets for a sold out show (for as little as $25 a ticket). Not all shows have these tickets available and rules and prices vary at those that do so if you do decide to try your luck, be sure to call ahead to the box office first before wasting your time on what might have been a lost cause to begin with.

BOTTOM LINE: you should be able to get orchestra or front mezzanine seats for most Broadway shows for well under $100 a ticket – indeed, in many cases under $50 a ticket. And that’s just Broadway. If you’re also interested in Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway, as you probably are, you’ll be able to see some wonderful productions there for even less. But that’s another story to be saved for a future column.