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Post by jgblunners on Sept 1, 2016 16:23:11 GMT
As a student in london you'll generally have the opportunity and flexibility to take advantage of the cheaper tickets, so you may end up seeing more than you think! There's some really good cheap schemes around - NT entry Pass, Donmar Young and free for their Shakespeare trilogy, Donmar front row, Royal Court Monday nights for £10, Jamie Lloyd's £15 Mondays on many of his shows. For fringe stuff you could join Audience Club and see a lot of stuff for just a small booking fee. Oh, and it's not theatre, but www.bfi.org.uk/25-and-under is worth signing up for. The Shakespeare trilogy is definitely on my list, if I can get tickets, as I especially want to see how the perform 'The Tempest' having studied it for A-Level and read about the many elaborate original stagings of the play. The Royal Court and Jamie Lloyd schemes are something I had forgotten, so thanks for that, and I'll need to keep an ear open for plays that may be up my street. One thing I hadn't heard of is the NT entry pass? www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/entry-pass£5 tickets to every show at the National, usually some rather good seats. They go quickly for most productions though!
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1,102 posts
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Post by zak97 on Sept 1, 2016 16:24:50 GMT
The Shakespeare trilogy is definitely on my list, if I can get tickets, as I especially want to see how the perform 'The Tempest' having studied it for A-Level and read about the many elaborate original stagings of the play. The Royal Court and Jamie Lloyd schemes are something I had forgotten, so thanks for that, and I'll need to keep an ear open for plays that may be up my street. One thing I hadn't heard of is the NT entry pass? www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/entry-pass£5 tickets to every show at the National, usually some rather good seats. They go quickly for most productions though! Oh, and also how does The Audience club work, I'm slightly confused by their website? But if it seems there is a lot more cheap theatre around than I had initially thought I could possibly do two big shows and one small production per month.
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4,369 posts
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Post by Michael on Sept 1, 2016 16:37:41 GMT
I'm seeing much less theatre this year than in the last years: By the end of the year, I will "only" have seen 69 shows, compared to 97 in 2015 and even 107 in 2014. It's not that I've lost interest in theatre, I simply struggle to find shows that interest me enough to justify flying over to the UK.
Last year had Memphis which I loved (27 times, wish it had been much more often), and 2014 had the Wicked and Rock of Ages UK tours and, in the first half, Willemijn Verkaik in Wicked in London. And 2016? Very few of the shows currently running interest me (absolutely no interest in Bodyguard, Kinky Boots, Lion King, Motown, Phantom, Les Mis), and I'm even actively avoiding some of my favourite (long-running) shows because of certain cast members - and I tend(ed) to see them an unhealthy amount of times each year. Heck, there are even two months this year where I (will) have seen no shows at all (May and October).
Here's hoping 2017 will be better - if only there were more upcoming productions to look forward to than School of Rock. Fingers crossed for the Memphis tour to eventually happen...
As I'm not living in the UK, I have to fly over for my theatre fix. So when I'm in the UK anyway, I usually make the most of it and see as much theatre as possible and fill every theatre "slot". Usually, it's only for a weekend though (flying over Friday afternoon, returning home on Sunday) so that I don't have to take time off from work (I work flexible hours so I can easily leave work Friday at noon-ish).
New York is somehow similar to London. I'm not wasting any precious theatre slots, but as I've been there much more seldom than in London, I fill the rest of the day with sightseeing (there's still quite a lot to see - I'll definitely be visiting the 9/11 and Guggenheim museums during my upcoming trip in December).
I also try to combine my other vacations with theatre. I wanted to see the Newsies US tour a few more times, so I looked through their tour schedule and found St. Louis and San Diego as tour stops. Never been to the first and wanted to return to the second for quite some time, so I booked trips to both to see Newsies and for sightseeing and exploring the cities.
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4,038 posts
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Post by kathryn on Sept 1, 2016 17:20:48 GMT
Oh, and also how does The Audience club work, I'm slightly confused by their website? But if it seems there is a lot more cheap theatre around than I had initially thought I could possibly do two big shows and one small production per month. Audience Club is basically a seat-filling club. You pay their small membership fee (which is donated to charity), put some money in an online kitty to book tickets with, and then they post up shows you can get tickets for (generally in the next week, although new shows can be added during the day), and you just pay a few quid booking fee. The tickets will be allocated by the theatre when you collect at box office, and you can't complain about where they put you, but they're generally not bad seats - the point is to make the theatre look full for the paying punters, and create a good atmosphere. They generally don't get many West End shows, but they do get lots of fringe stuff and classical music concerts, and sometimes comedy, too. They do insist on you following their rules - basically, you must either show up to collect tickets or cancel your ticket if you can't make it, no refunds if you cancel, you must be polite to box office staff, you can't complain about your seat, you mustn't tell anyone your seat was a comp from audience club, and you're not allowed to talk about which shows you saw through them. They do have a habit of sending annoying shouty emails whenever anyone breaks one of those rules, but if you can put up with that you can see some good stuff for very little.
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4,361 posts
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Post by shady23 on Sept 3, 2016 7:54:02 GMT
I live in Newcastle so tend to binge watch shows when I am down in London. I probably see more in London than I do locally as there hasn't been much touring locally that I have fancied.
Unfortunately the trains down are more expensive now Virgin have taken over the franchise.
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