Every November the same three things hit Broadway in the same eight weeks. The tourists arrive. The performance schedules start moving around. And a pile of shows you kept meaning to see post their final weekend. This year that pile is big: between now and mid-January, eleven Broadway productions take their last bows, five of them on the same Sunday.
I have lived through a lot of Decembers in this neighborhood. Here is how to do the season without paying holiday prices, standing behind a stroller brigade on 49th Street, or finding out on January 4th that the show you wanted closed yesterday.
The dates that actually matter
- Thanksgiving week, Nov. 23–29. Schedules shift. Most shows play Thanksgiving night, and plenty add a Wednesday or Friday matinee.
- Wednesday, Dec. 2. The Rockefeller Center tree lighting. Midtown east of Sixth Avenue turns into a pedestrian traffic jam.
- Christmas week, Dec. 21–27. Christmas falls on a Friday this year. Expect matinee-heavy Christmas Eve, a mostly dark Christmas Day, and extra shows on either side.
- New Year's week, Dec. 28–Jan. 3. New Year's Eve is thin on curtains. New Year's Day is not.
- Sunday, Jan. 3. The big closing day. Jan. 10 and Jan. 17 take a few more.
Thanksgiving week: the extra shows are the deal
People assume Broadway goes dark for Thanksgiving. It does the opposite. Playbill's Thanksgiving week schedule shows nearly every production playing Thursday night, usually at 7 or 7:30. Many add a Wednesday performance, and a long list adds a Friday 2 PM matinee: & Juliet, Aladdin and The Lion King among them. A few even play the Monday, which is normally the industry's day off. Stranger Things adds one. So do Hamilton and Hadestown.
Why this matters to you and not just to the box office: most digital lotteries draw per performance. An added matinee is an added drawing. Same odds per drawing, more chances to be the name that gets called. If you are in town for the holiday, enter for the Friday matinee too. The out-of-towners are at the mall.
The parade owns Central Park West and Sixth Avenue on Thursday morning, and it clears out long before curtain. Thanksgiving night in the Theater District is quieter than a normal Saturday. Nobody believes me until they try it.
Christmas and New Year's: plan off last year
The official holiday schedules for this year are not out yet. Last year's pattern, from New York Theatre Guide's roundup, is the best guide until they are:
- Christmas Eve: about a dozen shows played, all of them matinees. Done in time for dinner.
- Christmas Day: four shows. Chicago, MJ and Wicked were among them. Everyone else was home.
- New Year's Eve: two matinees. That's it. The city has other plans for that night.
- New Year's Day: around fifteen evening shows. The quietest good night of the year to go.
- The week in between: extra Monday and Tuesday performances and 2 PM matinees nearly every day.
Christmas falling on a Friday changes the days but probably not the shape. Check the show's own schedule before you book anything around the 24th through the 1st, because a "normal" Tuesday night that week may not exist or may exist twice.
The last-chance list
This is the part that sneaks up on people. Here are the Broadway closings on the calendar right now, with the cheapest door each one sells. Click through for entry windows, which differ by show.
- School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play — Samuel J. Friedman. Closes Nov. 15.
- The Imaginary Invalid — Todd Haimes. Closes Nov. 22.
- Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) — Longacre. Closes Nov. 29, Thanksgiving weekend. $48 Telecharge lottery.
- Six — Lena Horne. Closes Jan. 3. $45 Broadway Direct lottery, and its window closes later in the day than most.
- & Juliet — Stephen Sondheim. Closes Jan. 3. $49 TodayTix rush.
- Stranger Things: The First Shadow — Marquis. Closes Jan. 3. $45 Broadway Direct lottery for every performance.
- Schmigadoon! — Nederlander. Closes Jan. 3. $45 Broadway Direct lottery with an unusual 10-to-2 entry window.
- Now You See Me Live — Al Hirschfeld. Closes Jan. 3.
- Much Ado About Nothing — Winter Garden. Booked through Jan. 10. $49 Telecharge lottery.
- Here There Are Blueberries — Ethel Barrymore. Closes Jan. 10. $10 student tickets at the box office, which we covered here.
- Other Desert Cities — Hudson. Closes Jan. 17. $49 Lucky Seat lottery.
Two holiday-only runs also leave Broadway Jan. 3: It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play at the Broadhurst and Blue Man Group's holiday show at the Lunt-Fontanne. That is the point of them.
The trap with a closing show is the last two weeks. Everyone who meant to go finally goes, and the lottery gets crowded right when you need it. Enter now, while the people who procrastinate are still procrastinating. If you strike out, closing-week rush is a real option, but do not bet your only free night on it.
Holiday shows: we already did the homework
If you want December on stage, there are three separate productions of A Christmas Carol in town this year, from a candlelit parlor in an 1832 row house to the big one at PAC NYC. We priced all three, and told you which one I would pick. A second roundup, the December shows that are not A Christmas Carol, goes up later this week.
One rule I live by: a holiday show is a once-a-year purchase, so the discount math is different. Most of them do not run lotteries. Buy early, buy midweek, and do not wait for a deal that is not coming.
Eat first, and book it now
Restaurants near the theaters fill up in December the way theaters do. Evening curtains go up at 7, which means you want to be sitting down by 5:45 and paying by 6:35. Every pre-theater table in Hell's Kitchen is chasing that same window, so reserve the moment you have tickets.
- On a budget: where to eat before a Broadway show without spending a fortune.
- Doing a two-show day, which holiday weeks make easy: where to eat between the matinee and the evening show.
- Won a lottery at 3 PM and have four hours: the hub has every lottery running today, and the budget guide above has your dinner.
Getting around the crowds
Tree lighting night and the weeks after, the blocks around Rockefeller Center and Radio City get slow from Fifth over to Sixth. If your theater is on the east side of the district, give yourself fifteen extra minutes, walk on Eighth Avenue instead of Sixth, and come at your house from the west. The side streets between Eighth and Broadway stay sane.
Coming from the airport with bags? Do not drag a suitcase through Times Square in December. Here is how to get from the airport to the Theater District without becoming a cautionary tale.
The short version
- Thanksgiving week has extra performances, so it has extra lottery drawings. Enter for the added matinees.
- Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are thin. New Year's Day is wide open.
- Eleven Broadway shows close between Nov. 15 and Jan. 17. Five go on Jan. 3. Enter their lotteries now, not in the last week.
- Book dinner when you book the show. Sit down by 5:45 for a 7 PM curtain.
- New to lotteries? Start with How to Win Every Broadway Lottery. It is the whole playbook.
Closing dates move, and extensions get announced on short notice. We update show pages as they do, so if a date above changes, the show page is the one to trust.
