Broadway: Immediate Seating

One durable canon of American folklore is that Broadway tickets are all but impossible to come by, that playgoers have to write for tickets months in advance, know influential people or pay scalpers’ prices.

The truth is that most Broadway shows have long been as easy to attend as a movie; playgoers who merely drift up to the box office at curtain time can generally plunk down their money and walk right in. One night last week, for example, only three of Broadway’s 29 shows were sold out by 5 130: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Night of the Iguana and Milk and Honey. (Since the most publicized shows are the ones that nearly all out-of-town visitors want to see. the impossible-ticket myth has spread all over the U.S.) Tickets were available not only for long-running shows (Camelot, Mary, Mary) but also for new productions: Ross, A Shot in the Dark, Gideon, A Man for All Seasons, etc. It was not even necessary to hang around the box office for some purple-faced commuter to show up with salable tickets and the heartrending story that his wife had missed the train from New Canaan.