Céline Dion has nine days left on Broadway. Titanique plays its final performance at the St. James on Sunday, Sept 20, and after that the only place to see Marla Mindelle hijack a Titanic museum tour is wherever it lands next. The show opened in April, got four Tony nominations including Best Musical, was supposed to close July 12, and got a two-month extension that ends next Sunday. If you've been meaning to go, this is the post that tells you how to do it for under $50 and exactly which morning decides whether you can.
Who's on the boat
The reason the extension happened is the cast, and the cast is still here through the last show. Marla Mindelle, who co-wrote it and has been Céline since the Off-Broadway run, is still Céline. Jim Parsons is Ruth, Melissa Barrera is Rose, Deborah Cox is the Unsinkable Molly Brown, Frankie Grande is Victor Garber (yes, that's a character), Constantine Rousouli is Jack, John Riddle is Cal, and Layton Williams is The Iceberg. That is a lot of famous people in a show about a cruise ship, and unlike Moulin Rouge's final stretch last month, there's no asterisk on the last performance: the announced principals play through Sept 20.
Three doors under $50, and the order to try them
Our catalog carries three cheap routes into the St. James, and they're all still live. Here's how I'd sequence them.
1. The $49 Lucky Seat lottery. Digital, limit two, fees included per the show's own site. The window is the thing: for a weekday performance, entries close at 9:30 the morning before. For Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday performances, entries close at 9:30 the Friday before. Which means the final weekend of the run, Sept 18 through 20, is decided by Friday, Sept 18 at 9:30 in the morning. Miss that and there is no lottery entry left to make. Put it in your phone now.
2. The $49 TodayTix rush. Opens at 9 in the morning on the day of the performance, in the app, limit two. If you lost the Friday draw for the final weekend, this is your Saturday morning move. Rush is first-come, not a draw, so the alarm matters more than the luck.
3. The $45 in-person rush. Day of performance at the St. James box office, 246 W 44th, limit two. It's the cheapest of the three and it's the one nobody talks about because it requires standing on 44th Street. For a closing week I'd expect a line before the window opens. Bring coffee.
The honest odds note: a closing show's last week is its hardest lottery week, because everyone who put it off enters at once. If you can go this coming Tuesday through Thursday instead of the final weekend, the pile is smaller and the same three doors are open. The September post from Thursday has the reasoning.
Everything else that moved this week
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play started previews Tuesday at the Friedman, Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway house. Jocelyn Bioh's play about a Ghanaian boarding school pageant in 1986, directed by Whitney White. No lottery and no rush in the catalog as of Friday; MTC35 applies, $35 for anyone 35 and under with a guest of any age, and that's the door until MTC says otherwise. As with every new show, a lottery announcement near opening is a read, not a promise.
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been closes tonight at City Center Stage I. MTC35 was its only discount door. If you're reading this Friday morning and you're under 35, it's not too late to walk up.
The Cherry Orchard opens at the Park Avenue Armory on Wednesday, Sept 16, for eleven days: Simon Stone's Korean-language Chekhov with English captions, Jeon Do-yeon and Park Hae-soo, tickets from $45 with fees. Monday's big-rooms post has the full breakdown of that house and the other non-Broadway theaters that don't use the lottery platforms.
Six has an end date now: Jan 3, 2027, at the Lena Horne, announced two weeks ago. Its $45 Broadway Direct lottery keeps running to the end, and its $49 standing room and student rush are still on. Four months is a long goodbye, but it means the queens are officially a closing show and the lottery pile will start growing.
Spelling Bee turned over its cast. Ali Stroker and Laurie Hernandez joined the Off-Broadway run at New World Stages this week, replacing Alex Newell and Laura Marano, and the run now goes to Oct 11. The $39 lottery and $49 rush are unchanged.
Paranormal Activity's lottery is the newest on the board and the only one on Broadway that states its $40 price as all-in including fees. Two and a half weeks past opening at the August Wilson, it's a good pull if you want a scare before Halloween without a Halloween-week crowd.
What's left on the closing board
After Titanique goes, the next Broadway closing on the calendar is The Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54 on Nov 29, with its $30 TodayTix lottery, $30 rush and student half-price. Then Oh, Mary!, Paranormal Activity, Schmigadoon!, Stranger Things and Six all on Jan 3. The lottery hub tracks every one of those doors live, and the census has the whole board in one table if you'd rather read it than tap it.
Set the Friday alarm. Sept 18, 9:30 in the morning. That's the whole post.
Cast and dates verified against the production's Playbill listing and our catalog the week this was written. Lottery and rush details from the show's own site as recorded in our catalog.
