On Sunday night at the Tony Awards, the Pulitzer/Grammy/Everything-winning juggernaut that is “Hamilton” continued to devour awards, bringing home the coin-on-a-pedestal statuettes in tremendous if not record-breaking numbers. But what if you want to see this for yourself and you don’t have, er, $3,000 lying around? Simple. Easy. Here are a few ways.
Go to the show’s website and click on the day you want. It will say that there are no available tickets. Ignore it. Go through the motions of ordering your ticket and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. Click the “Special Exception” button. Type why you deserve a ticket — you! of all people. Be as eloquent and as honest as you can. If the page allows you to proceed, the ticket will be free.
One word in the Ron Chernow “Hamilton” biography is a secret word that should not be in the book at all and is, in fact, a code that will get you a free “Hamilton” ticket. Guess which word it is. Keep in mind that it might be in the notes.
Throw $10 into a fountain, all in nickels. The hand of Thomas Jefferson will rise out of the center of the fountain holding a ticket. DO NOT STEP INTO THE FOUNTAIN WHEN YOU GO TO RETRIEVE YOUR TICKET OR I CANNOT ANSWER FOR YOUR SAFETY.
Visit the Hamilton memorial on the Mall. Jinx! THERE IS NO HAMILTON MEMORIAL. Arrange for it to be built. On the day of the ribbon-cutting look more closely at the ribbon. It is not a ribbon after all, is it? It is a ticket. Glance up to see Eliza Hamilton’s shadowy figure wink at you as she mouths the word “narrative.”
Buy the cheapest ticket readily available five years from now. Get one of those enchanted remotes from the “Beyond” section of Bed, Bath and Beyond like Adam Sandler had in the movie “Click.” Use it to fast-forward through your life until the point when you have your “Hamilton” ticket, missing your daughter’s childhood in the process. It is all right. She will understand when she sees “Hamilton.”
Win the ticket lottery.
Win the regular lottery.
Dedicate your whole life to chemistry. Become a chemist. Win the Nobel Prize. Casually bump into Lin-Manuel Miranda as he takes home a Nobel Prize for Literature for his latest play. Ask if he can get you a seat. It is rude for one Nobel Laureate to refuse another.
Surgically attach yourself to the body of someone you knew was already going to see “Hamilton.” They will probably accommodate you at the theater. If asked about the entire person attached to you, smile jauntily and say, “Can you believe it? This morning, it was just a boil on my elbow!” and then laugh loudly and too long.
Buy a New York subway card. Travel with it until you are so far inland that someone asks you what it is. Settle there. Wait. Wait so long that you have forgotten what you are waiting for. Lead a quiet, ordinary life. Forget about “Hamilton.” Forget about everything until one day you get a $10 bill as change. Burst into tears as suddenly you remember. Watch as your tears transform the bill into a TICKET TO “HAMILTON.”
Win a goldfish at a traveling circus. Name it “Burr.” Nurse it and love it and sing it highlights from the cast recording. At the end of its life, if you have been kind enough, you will come to feed Burr and discover nothing in the bowl, not even water — only a ticket to a seat in the row your treatment has earned.
Find one of those cats who make fancy coffee in their digestive tracts and feed it a ticket to “Cats.” What comes out should be a ticket to “Hamilton” but might be to “The Color Purple” instead — which, hey, looks GREAT!
Ride the subway all the way to the end of the line. Close your eyes. If you are lucky, when you open them, the first person you see will be The Ticketmaster. You will know him by his enormous coat stuffed with tickets. Tell him you wish to arm-wrestle, and he will have to accommodate you. If you win, you may ask for any ticket you desire, although he will try to give you “School of Rock” tickets instead.
Run for president. Unexpectedly become a major candidate who galvanizes millions of youth voters. Then you will suddenly be able to see not only the musical but also the cast backstage! (Bernie Sanders literally did this.)
Kiss a subway rat, and it will turn into a pile of “Hamilton” tickets and a key to a rent-controlled apartment with a view of Central Park. It has to be the right rat, though.
Disguise yourself as a stage door.
Disguise yourself as a chair in the Richard Rodgers theater. Your view will be a little impeded by the person sitting on you but it is better than the alternative, not seeing “Hamilton” with nobody sitting on you.
Reach under your bed. Take the hand of whatever you find there. Let it pull you under. Maybe there are “Hamilton” tickets there!
Some say that there is an island shrouded in mists that appears on cloudy days an hour’s swim from Manhattan, where a tree hangs heavy with tickets to “Hamilton” matinees. You will know the isle is near when you hear “and Peggy!” echoing over the rocks. Many have perished trying to swim here, and its rocks are treacherous, but some who made it there and back with the tickets clutched tightly in their teeth were able to see the show from the second row and they are friends with Daveed Diggs for life, just normal friends.
Buried at every crossroads, there is one ticket to “Hamilton.” But someone else has probably gotten to it already.
