Alex Lella's Blog

Waiting in Line. . .

Wow! I am the new king of the blogging group. That doesn't have anything to do with the entry topic, but I thought I should mention it just in case someone who didn't already know was actually reading this.

Anyway, the longest I waited in line for something. . .

Well, when I was thirteen years old, The Phantom of the Opera had just opened on Broadway. It was almost legendary, in that there were no ads for it (there didn't need to be because it was selling out months in advance), the music wasn't played anywhere. The only people who knew about it were those who had read the reviews and talked about it. But there was one little-known way to see it inexpensively. You see, every show had a small number of "standing room" tickets which were not for sale until the morning of the show. (Furthermore, there was a limit of two tickets per person.)

One Saturday morning, my father went into town at around 7 a.m. to see if he could get a pair him and my mother. He failed. He asked the people in line what time they had arrived that morning. They told him about 5:00. He decided to try that the following week. This time he asked me if I wanted to come. "You're welcome to come", he said, but since they won't let one person by more then two tickets, you'll have to come with me and pick up a ticket yourself." I decided why not.

Thus at around 5 a.m. Saturday morning, while it was still dark, my father and I were standing outside the Majestic Theatre in Manhattan. We were there for approximately five hours, but we got the tickets. I remember walking back to the car afterwards my father was waving the tickets in the air, "These things are made of gold!" he exclaimed.

So was it worth it? Sure the show turned out to be pretty amazing, and besides, as you may know, it has gone on to become the longest running show in Broadway history. I feel kind of smug knowing that I saw it back then.