McFrankenstein and the HIPygmalion Party

Two interesting discoveries while on Broadway tonight. First (and yes, as it turns out, TONY is on this one, too), while grabbing an Angus Deluxe during the 15-minute break at Pygmalion (yes, I'm a pig, but at least I don't speak cockney), I encountered big advertisements for the lottery tickets being given out for Young Frankenstein. Apparently, three hours before that show, you go across the street to this strange thing called a theater (in fact the Hilton Theater, where the show is playing), and you put your name in a lottery. Should you win this lottery, you'll also (shockingly) buy your $26.50 tickets there. However, to find if you've won, you have to go into the heart of that neon McDonalds next door two hours before the show. Now, I thought as with Signature Theater that when there were corporate sponsors, all the tickets were $15 or $20 a pop. So what's the deal with this franchising? (As for the information itself, it's hopelessly hidden on the slow-to-load, hard-to-navigate site for the show, located here.)

As for the other, because I attended Pygmalion as part of the HIPTIX program, I got a chance to see their marketing department at work, as October 25th happened to be a "Makeover Party" for all the young professionals in the audience. The event was cheery, with a few of the actors making the rounds (Jay O. Sanders and Doug Stender), and there was free Tsingtao beer and light snack foods (followed by decadent mini-brownies). There were goodie bags, too. But aside from the two charming makeup artists giving penthouse guests a "makeover," nothing about the event tied to theater itself, which I thought was the whole point of the HIPTIX program. I was lucky enough to be introduced to some other people with an interest in theater, and I had a nice discussion about some other shows I'd recently seen or now plan on seeing (The Overwhelming and Speech and Debate), but for the most part, people came for the swag and the food, and stuck with their friends, and didn't seem to give a shit about theater. Heart's in the right place, but isn't there something more we can do? Surely there's something more I can do, and I'll keep reaching out until there are enough of us to actually affect a change in theatergoing trends.