HAMILTON - DO YOU ACTUALLY GET TICKETS?

So, were you one of the lucky ones?  Yep, the Broadway hit musical Hamilton has finally arrived with over 50,000 tickets sold in the opening days according to the Toronto Star.  The planned run for the show is not that long - February 11 to May 17th and early reviews of the Toronto roadshow have been very positive.  

Hamilton is a musical with rap music and is loosely based on the story of Alexander Hamilton who was one of the founding fathers of America.  The play was written by well-known playwright and author Lin-Manuel Miranda and has been a best selling play on Broadway since it opened back in 2015.  Winner of numerous awards including 8 Drama Desk Awards and 11 Tony Awards. The London engagement opened in the West End in 2017 and it took down 7 Olivier Awards including best Musical.  Theatre goers in Toronto have been eagerly awaiting for the Toronto debut and when tickets went on sale back in October of 2019 the phone lines and internet lines basically blew up.

I had been given a special code that would allow me to log on at 10 am on the Saturday of the pre-sell,  so I set up the laptop and iPad to see how this would work. I logged on and was given a message that I was in line and eventually I would receive a notification that it was okay to start choosing my dates. Well, not so simple. I started to pick every date and any date that I could find and all I was getting was nada and more nada.....no tickets available?  How could this be? I’m literally first in line - or so, I assumed. After an hour of pure frustration, I went back on the website and decided to see if I could call the box office. To my surprise, I got through and spoke to a very friendly person on the other end who asked me for my code and he kindly was able to help me to pick a date and before you knew it I was $600 poorer.  Later that day the online world was buzzing with complaints about the process which I can only assume was driven by the high demand for the tickets. Simple supply and demand. 

I had the fortune of already seeing the play during a trip to Chicago last year.  It had been playing for a few years and during a frequent business trip there I had Sunday evening to myself.  My hotel was quite close to the theatre and so, I thought I would take a chance and walk over and see if there were any single tickets available for that night.

I thought that my prospects were quite good especially since the play had been playing in Chicago since early 2016 and it was a Sunday night in the winter.  Sure enough, I was able to get a very good single seat for under $200 and off I went. My seat was literally six rows from the front and I did notice that the size of the theatre seemed much smaller than the Toronto theatres.  In fact I found the same thing in New York as the theatres are much smaller and more intimate. Obviously I had heard of the play but I had never heard the music before and so I was somewhat surprised when the actors started singing and that it was a combination of hip-hop, R&B and traditional show tunes.  The music, lyrics and book were outstanding and it was an incredible performance that had the audience on their feet cheering at the end.

I became a full fledged fan and even downloaded the music and I guarantee you will be tapping your feet when you listen - make sure you give it “My Shot” and try to go to see the play.  I will follow up with my review of the Toronto show at a later date.