Nine days, five productions, five new cheap doors. Between November 2 and November 10, Galileo, Now You See Me Live, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Here There Are Blueberries and A Kidman Carol all put a lottery or a rush price on the board. Four of the five did it before their opening night. That is the fastest the board has filled in since I started tracking it this fall, and it is the hook for this post: not a re-sort of the lottery board, but five houses that had nothing and now have something.
One of them has a shape I have not seen on our board before. A Kidman Carol's $30 lottery is not a daily draw — entries close at 11:59 PM on Monday November 9, there are exactly three drawings, and winners get a full day to pay. If you are reading this on Monday, that one is the clock to watch. Everything else here runs daily and will still be there tomorrow.
Galileo — $45, two ways, at the Shubert
Galileo starts performances Tuesday November 10 at the Sam S. Shubert Theatre, 225 West 44th Street, and opens Sunday December 6. Raúl Esparza plays the title role, with Michael Park alternating at certain performances, Jeremy Kushnier and Joy Woods alongside him; Danny Strong wrote the book, Zoe Sarnak and Michael Weiner the score, Michael Mayer directs.
Both doors are $45. The lottery is an online form at rush.telecharge.com — the announcements only said "digital lottery", but Playbill's own rush-and-lottery policies page names the address. Entries from 12 AM ET one day before each performance, closing at 3 PM ET, drawn at 10 AM and 3 PM ET, five hours to claim and buy online. Credit card only and the card you buy with is your ID. Limit two; seats can be in any section, can be partial view, and a pair can be split.
The rush is $45 at the Shubert box office on the day — 10 AM Monday through Saturday, noon on Sunday — first come, first served, two per person. Same price as the lottery, which makes the choice a question of your morning rather than your money.
Now You See Me Live — $42 everywhere, three different clocks
At the Al Hirschfeld, 302 West 45th Street, performances start Wednesday November 11 and the run is set through Sunday January 3. Every price here is $42 including fees, which is rarer than it should be and worth saying out loud.
Three doors, three clocks. The Lucky Seat lottery is free to enter, needs a Lucky Seat account, and draws every morning at 11 AM ET — the first drawing is Tuesday November 10, winners can buy up to two per drawing, and photo ID is required on collection. The TodayTix rush goes live at 9 AM ET on the day of the performance in the app or on the site, and you can buy up to two for that day's morning, afternoon or evening show; the app will alert you, and photo ID is required here too. And there is an ordinary box office rush at the Hirschfeld on the day, 10 AM Monday through Saturday and noon on Sunday, two per patron.
Note what the Hirschfeld did not do: it did not use Telecharge. That is the house's own plumbing, and it means the account you set up for a Shubert show is no use to you here.
It's a Wonderful Life — $49, and the most doors of the five
The Broadhurst, 235 West 44th Street. Previews started Wednesday November 4, opening night is Wednesday November 18, and the engagement is nine weeks through Sunday January 3, 2027.
Everything is $49, three ways. The Telecharge digital lottery takes entries from 12 AM ET the day before and closes them at 3 PM ET the day before — note that, because it is earlier than the drawing-day cutoff people assume — then draws at 10 AM and 3 PM ET on the performance day, with five hours to claim and buy online. A separate Telecharge digital rush is released at 11 AM ET on the day. And there is a general rush at the Broadhurst box office on the day, from 10 AM Monday through Saturday and noon on Sunday; the window itself is staffed to 8 PM on weekdays and 6 PM on Sunday. Two tickets per person on all three.
Here There Are Blueberries — the update to last Monday's post
A week ago I wrote about the $10 student tickets at Here There Are Blueberries and said plainly that our board showed no lottery and no general rush for the production at all. That is no longer true, and that post now carries a dated correction.
The Ethel Barrymore, 243 West 47th Street, booked through January 10, 2027, now carries a $49 Telecharge digital lottery on the family's standard clock, a $49 Telecharge digital rush at 11 AM on the day with no ID required, and the $10 student tickets at the box office with a valid student ID, limit two, cash or credit. If you are not a student, the cheap door you did not have last week you now have twice. The Christmas Carol comparison post has the same correction for It's a Wonderful Life, which it had down as $77 and up.
A Kidman Carol — $30, three drawings, and a day to pay
This is the odd one, and it is Off-Broadway: New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street, 54 performances from Monday November 16 through Wednesday December 30.
The lottery is $30 including fees through rush.telecharge.com, and it does not behave like the others:
- Entries close Monday November 9 at 11:59 PM. It is one window, not a nightly one.
- Three drawings only — Thursday November 12, Friday November 13 and Monday November 16, all at noon ET.
- Winners get 24 hours to claim and pay, not the five you get from a Telecharge Broadway draw.
- It covers every performance from November 16 through November 29.
A finite draw for a finite block of performances is inventory dressed as a raffle, and it rewards the opposite behaviour from a daily lottery: you enter once, properly, and then you wait. The separate digital rush is $39 including fees, every performance, released at 11 AM on the day, two per person — so if the draw misses you, there is a second price at the same address.
The correction this run forced
Last Thursday I published nine holiday shows that are not A Christmas Carol, and the closing argument was that none of the nine posts a lottery or a rush — that a fixed-capacity room on a six-week run has no reason to give seats away. A Kidman Carol announced its two doors the same day that post went up. The post has been corrected, and the argument needs narrowing rather than scrapping: a holiday room with a six-week run and no discount history usually posts nothing, except when it needs to fill previews, which is exactly the window A Kidman Carol priced.
What I would actually enter
Five new doors is more than anyone can work in a morning, so pick by clock rather than by show. The Telecharge pair — Galileo and It's a Wonderful Life — share one entry habit and one account, so they cost you one set of taps. Now You See Me Live needs a Lucky Seat account and an 11 AM result, which is a different alarm. A Kidman Carol needs one entry before Monday night and nothing after.
And the thing none of these announcements tells you: the rush is usually the better odds and the worse morning. If you can be at a box office window, the in-person rush at the Shubert, the Broadhurst and the Hirschfeld is $45, $49 and $42 respectively, and nobody has to draw your name. More on that trade in the in-person rush post.
The full board, updated as these move, is on the lottery hub; the mechanics by platform are in the platform guide, and the long version of how to work all of them is here. Show pages: Galileo, Now You See Me Live, It's a Wonderful Life, Here There Are Blueberries and A Kidman Carol.
