My day did not start off as well as I’d hoped, especially considering it’s the first in an entirely new decade for myself. To understand I must first explain what happened December 25th, or Christmas Day. My mom wanted to buy me really nice Broadway tickets as a part of my Christmas present, which is by far the greatest gift I have ever received. I went on to Broadway.com to purchase tickets to the January 1st showing of Wicked and at checkout, the website defaulted my choice back to the next available show, which was the Christmas day showing that evening. This was after I had double-checked that I had selected a seat for the correct show and I wasn’t notified of this mistake until I received a notification reminder intending to keep me from missing my show, which would have been great if it were the correct show. In addition to this massive clusterfuck, they also added over $100 in handling fees after the initial ticket price of $350 for one orchestra ticket, bringing the total ticket price including tax to just under $500. This meant that we had just spent $500 on a useless ticket. I attempted to call and they were closed for the holiday, so I emailed about the issue right away and before the show. They didn’t get back to me until late the next day with an automated email letting me know that they had a past-date ticket policy, so I could use the ticket on the same day of a show I wanted to see if the theatre anticipated there being available tickets. I decided that this would have to do because I wouldn’t be receiving a refund. That leads us to today, the day of the show I wanted to attend. I called Broadway.com and they were again closed for the holidays. I don’t have anything against closing offices for the holidays, that makes sense, in general, it’s good business, but I do have an issue with them having a policy that requires that you call the day of and then when Broadway is open for the holidays your office is closed and so this policy completely prevents customers from seeking these tickets prior to the show on holidays. I decided that since I was already in New York I should just cut out the middle man for getting my hands on these tickets and walked to the Gershwin Theatre, where Wicked is currently showing, and discovered that their holiday hours meant that they wouldn’t be open until noon.
Brief pause to get an everything bagel with cream cheese and lox from Pick-a-Bagel. Tip: ask for light cream cheese, otherwise they cake it on. Like, half an inch thick of cream cheese, which is gross.
I returned to the theatre and was informed by the box office that unfortunately for me they expected to completely sell out tickets for the show and since past-date tickets are based on availability they had nothing they could give me. Cue me almost crying my makeup off in Manhattan because this was the one thing I was most looking forward to because I love Broadway.
The one bright spark, because I am an optimist at heart, this doesn’t mean I wasted $500 because the ticket isn’t completely useless. I was informed that the Gershwin Theatre will honor a past-due ticket for as long as the show is at the theatre, so as long as Wicked is showing I can come back and try again for an available ticket. Since they mostly sell out during the holidays, weekends, and school breaks, this meant that if I decided to come back in a few years I had a good chance of getting into a mid-week show. So, the ticket isn’t useless, it’s just useless right now and since it’s digital I’m not going to lose it in my clutter.
I called my mom and she told me to get a ticket to a different show, again, huge shout out to my mom! I immediately went to the box office for Beetlejuice at the Winter Garden Theatre and purchased an orchestra section ticket for $200 without any of the extra bullshit fees that online ticketing retailers charge. If you’re a local or only looking for one ticket, especially if it’s a ticket to a show that doesn’t usually sell out quickly (for example not Hamilton, Book of Mormon, or Dear Evan Hansen) then the box office is the only way you should buy tickets.
From there I walked to Central Park, stopping at Starbucks on the way because I was super dehydrated and I’m a basic white bitch that wastes a lot of money on overly priced flavored water. Central Park was cold as hell and the lawns were all closed but lots of people were super nice and offered to take my photo at the different landmarks within Central Park.
For dinner, I went to a cute little Italian restaurant called Casa Barilla that was near Central Park. They had a ton of great options for between $10-20 per serving and I chose to keep it simple with spaghetti el Pomodoro with meatballs and lemonade. I was able to watch them prepare it through the glass half wall between the kitchen and dining area and when they brought it out to me it was steaming hot and absolutely delicious.
My day ended listening to Beetlejuice, which was fantastical and sarcastic and just a sprinkle of raunchy. It’s a great show for adults and teens, but maybe not the best for young children unless you want them to grow up to be Lydia, the dark and twisted pre-teen that the plot centers around. It’s filled with witty one-liners that could easily make for dark comedic memes of the near future, Gen-Z humor at its finest.
The musical is about a demon, Beetlejuice, who wants to become visible to people but in order to do so, he needs a living person to say his name three times. Since he can’t interact with the living he keeps a recently dead couple from descending to the Netherworld so that they can manipulate a living person into saying it for him. It’s then that he meets Lydia, a grieving teenager who has become quite cynical in her depression, otherwise known as ‘weird’ by her father and soon-to-be stepmother. She defies all odds and is somehow able to see Beetlejuice but all is not simply over because Lydia is witty enough to know that releasing a demon is not going to solve all of her problems. Eventually, when she sees no other option she does choose to release him to rid herself of her father and step-mother, however, as expected all does not work out as planned. It, of course, ends with the father and daughter working out their differences and Beetlejuice becoming kind and blah blah blah happily ever after. Overall, it was a good show, if a bit predictable.