I was an Audience Extra or When Free Things Cost Too Much

Many know about the TKTS booths located around the city (including the cool new digs in Times Square) which offer "cheap" Broadway tickets. Broadway's definition of cheap is unfortunately still out of my regular price range and is reserved for those special nights out.

But what about shows off Broadway? With all that talent on Broadway some of it is bound to overflow onto other streets and avenues, right? Sure! I bet any old street, like 24th Street for instance, would have close to Broadway musical talent! So out I wandered onto 24th Street and POW! Windnie, David Emery, and I were asked to be "Audience Extras" for Sessions the Musical featuring Robert Newman! (Clarification: I found the tickets on Craigslist)

Robert Newman! OMG!

Who is Robert Newman?! It turns out he spent basically an entire career on A Guiding Light! WOO! That's a certifiable D-list celebrity!

Anyway, as audience extras we got free tickets that usually sell for $50 (though I'm not sure if the entire audience was "extra")! It's not all fun and games as an extra though. The email they sent me carried some very specific instructions:

1.Please be discreet! Not everybody gets free tickets, and we don't want our full-price paying guests to know you didn't pay! To get your tickets just show the printed email or your photo ID! Don't say "FREE!" if asked how you heard about the show Please show your Print out or just say "through Carly"

2.) Please show up on time and dressed appropriately!

3.) Please do not cal l the theater for any reason. They simply cannot handle the volume of phone calls

Yep, I had to use a secret code word to get our tickets! But the hardest part of being an Audience Extra was the part that came next... sitting through the show! OH! BURN! It was about as good as one might expect from a play led by the staccatoed, head bobbing leading man of a daytime television show. Which is to say it wasn't very good. I'm not here to give a detailed analysis of Sessions, but it wasn't worth the price of admission (ZING!). Some moments were pretty good but mostly it was uneven and had bad singing.

Sometimes it pays to pay but I think I'll keep on being a cheapskate for at least a little while. I'll just be a little more wary next time I go browsing the free tickets being offered on craigslist.

You can almost hear the crickets