TDF Stages

By MARK BLANKENSHIP

A little blizzard can’t stop the theatre, and it never stops TKTS. All three of Theatre Development Fund’s TKTS Discount Booths, which offer same-day discount tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays, are up and running, with a full slate of shows available for purchase.

Getting the booths open has required some snow-day heroics. If you head to the TKTS Booth in Times Square, which begins selling tickets to tonight’s performances at 3:00 PM, keep an eye out for head treasurer William Castellano. He lives upstate in Pearl River, New York, but yesterday, when he caught wind of the winter storm, he checked into the Edison Hotel near Times Square. “Once they start whining about how the weather’s going to be, I pack a bag,” he says.

He adds that employees from the Times Square Alliance have been shoveling snow all morning, making Duffy Square easily accessible. They’ll keep clearing as the snow drifts in throughout the day.

The Booths at South Street Seaport and at MetroTech in Brooklyn, which offer tickets for tonight’s performances and tomorrow’s matinees, are staffed by locals, and Castellano reports that everyone was present and accounted for when those booths opened at 11:00 AM.

By 10:00, there were even a few customers lining up at South Street, waiting to purchase discount tickets.

That’s not a surprise: It’s a New York tradition to head for the theatre in a blizzard. Castellano says that on most snowy days, he sees a throng of tourists and New Yorkers queueing for tickets. This morning, hours before the Times Square Booth even opened, people were chatting with him about what’s playing tonight. “I’m impressed by how resilient some of these people are,” he says. “It’s a festive atmosphere out here.”

Mark Blankenship is TDF’s online content editor