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You might consider tickets to previews (full-dress run-throughs of shows that have not officially opened yet and are still being polished), which are frequently cheaper, or even a rehearsal—say, of the New

(see next section).

Some cultural institutions have discounts for students, senior citizens, and members of the military or first responders, but be sure to carry ID when you seek tickets.

Finally, if you travel to New York frequently, consider joining an online club that helps you get discounted tickets. It works something like frequent-flier plans; in exchange for the membership fee, these clubs alert you to special offers, package deals, and in some cases same-day discounts. Read the fine print; in one case, the “half-price” ticket saving was offset by the cost of the membership. In many cases, these are shows that have been open for many years, in which case discount vouchers are available from a variety of sources.

PERFORMING ARTS

T H E B I G T I C K E T S : L I N C O L N C E N T E R , C A R N E G I E H A L L , E T C .

“ L I V E F RO M L I N C O L N C E N T E R ” is almost an understatement. Since the mid-1960s, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (www

.lincolncenter.org) has been home to New York’s most prestigious companies, an almost incomprehensible (and redundantly rich) lineup of artists, including the New York Philharmonic, both the

Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater, such popular series as the Mostly Mozart Festival, Midsummer Night Swing, and Big Apple Circus, Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (now housed down the block in a brilliant three-stage complex at the Time Warner Center), the Chamber Music Society, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the prestigious Juilliard School and School of American Ballet. Lincoln Center draws more than 5 million patrons a year. Even if you only worked your way through all its programs and never set foot on Broadway, you could still fill up most of a week.

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The six-building complex, a cluster that looks out toward Broadway and Columbus Avenue between West 62nd and 65th, includes five theatrical venues: the great opera house—known universally to opera fans as “the Met,” just as the Metropolitan Museum is “the” Met to art fans—the beautifully renovated Alice Tully Hall for recitals and concerts; the sibling legitimate theaters the Vivian Beaumont and the Mitzi Newhouse; and the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater); plus several recital halls, an outdoor band shell, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (including the

Bruno Walter Auditorium concert hall). And if that weren’t impressive enough, ongoing renovations estimated at $1.5 billion continue to give venues face-lifts and improved acoustics. Peripheral venues include the Gerard W. Lynch Theatre and LaGuardia Concert Hall, just a block or so off-campus, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex at the Time Warner Center.

The New York Philharmonic is in residence at Avery Fisher Hall from September through June. Open rehearsals during the season normally run from 9:45 a.m. until about 12:30 p.m. on various days of the week. Tickets are $16 (plus handling fees where applicable). Call

# 212-875-5656 or see www.nyphil.org. (Students should check for $12 rush tickets up to 10 days before concert dates. Seniors should check for day-of rush tickets by calling # 212-875-5656.)

The Metropolitan Opera House, with its crystal chandeliers and Chagall murals, is worth a tour of its own (see Part Six). The Met (www.metfamily.org) holds the stage from mid-September into May; the American Ballet Theater (www.abt.org) has been using it the rest of the year and sometimes performs at New York City Center (see next section).

The David H. Koch Theater, on the south side of the opera house, was designed by Philip Johnson and looks it, with its sequential entrances like layers of architectural curtains drawing back, its gilded ceiling, and its five banks of balconies. (That curtain of gold beads has 8 million parts.) The New York City Ballet (www.nycballet.com) is in residence from around Thanksgiving through February (The Nutcracker pretty much fills up the schedule until January) and again from April through June. The New York City Opera (www.nycopera

.com), under the direction of Gerard Mortier, performs July through November.

The Eero Saarinen–designed Vivian Beaumont Theater, next to the opera house behind the reflecting pool with the Henry Moore sculpture, is shining after a $5 million renovation. It’s what might be called a Broadway stage off Broadway, having staged what most people think of as Broadway’s The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific.

Under the Beaumont is the smaller (only 300 seats) and more cuttingedge Mitzi Newhouse Theater, which is the venue long known as the Forum (for both: www.lct.org).

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Alice Tully Hall, which has just completed its own $1.2 billion modernization, is the home of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (www.chambermusicsociety.org) and often hosts concerts by Juilliard students; it turns cinematic in fall for the New York Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theater upstairs (www.filmlinc.org).

Although they are not so well publicized, the Juilliard School has its own opera company, jazz orchestra, baroque consort, and frequent solo and dance concerts.

The wide plaza in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, on the 62nd Street side of Lincoln Center, is called Damrosch Park and is the winter home (under a tent, of course) of the Big

Apple Circus as well as various fine-arts and crafts shows during the year. It’s also where the Guggenheim Bandshell is located and where free concerts, dance programs, and family shows organized by Lincoln Center Out of Doors pop up in August; watch the papers.

O T H E R M A J O R V E N U E S

F E W C O N C E RT H A L L S H AV E AT T R AC T E D as many legends (and

jokes, of course) as Carnegie Hall (154 West 57th Street, near Seventh Avenue; # 212-247-7800; www.carnegiehall.org), and no wonder: Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere concert; the New York Philharmonic played here in the heydays of Mahler, Toscanini, Stokowski, and Bernstein; and a concert date here has for the past century been recognized as a mark of supreme artistry. Nowadays it hosts pop concerts as often as classical, but its astonishing acoustics and displays of memorabilia make it a genuine experience. Its newer, $50 million, 599-seat underground venue, Zankel Hall, is a more intimate space that hosts such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Emmylou Harris, Emanuel Ax, the Juilliard String Quartet, the New World Symphony, and Mitsuko Uchida.

Nearby is at 130 West 56th Street (# 212- 581-1212; www.nycitycenter.org), which hosts touring shows, dance performances, and concerts. (The Moorish-Spanish facade is a hint that it was originally a Shriners’ temple.)

Most people think of Radio City Music Hall only at holiday time, when the “world-famous Rockettes” and the equally famous “Mighty Wurlitzer” kick into high gear. But this Modernist Art masterpiece, lavishly decorated with gold foil, marble, cork, Bakelite, and aluminum, is still the world’s largest indoor theater. It’s equipped to handle films (it has hosted more than 700 premieres), stage shows, and concerts. Its schedule regularly includes a broad range of big-name acts: the Allman Brothers, Celtic Woman, Riverdance, New Kids on the Block, and the like (# 212-307-7171; www.radiocity.com).

The new Baryshnikov Arts Center in Hell’s Kitchen (450 West 37th Street; # 646-731-3200; www.bacnyc.org) promises to be one of the most influential alternative performance spaces; its

Theater is home to not only the Baryshnikov Dance Company but also

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the Wooster Group avant-garde theatrical troupe, free chamber-music concerts, and film series, among other attractions.

Three other frequently star-studded venues are worth watching (and not hard to get to): The (# 718-636-4100; www.bam.org), affectionately known as BAM, hosts film, theater, dance, opera, and music from local and international companies, including the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Aaron Davis Hall, on the campus of the City College of New York at West 135th Street and Convent Avenue, is a two-stage venue that brings in well-known jazz and pop performers (# 212-281-9240, ext. 19 or 20; www.harlemstage.org). And although it might take a train transfer, the

Newark (# 800-GO-NJPAC; www.njpac.org) stages many major international ballet, opera, and dance touring companies, not to mention world-class jazz and classical concerts.

B R O A D W A Y , O F F - B R O A D W A Y , A N D O F F - O F F - B R O A D W A Y

W H E N T H E L I G H T S G O O U T on Broadway, which happened most recently in November 2007 for a stagehands’ strike, people around the world know. A large number of theaters were already operating in the area when the arrival of the New York Times Building in 1904 changed the name of the former Longacre Square to Times Square. More than a century later, despite razings and redevelopment, renovations and relocations, there are still some four dozen theaters that can lay claim to the “Broadway” moniker.

The “official” Broadway theater district spans a 14-block stretch with a southern boundary at West 41st Street, where the Nederlander stands, to the northern boundary at Broadway and West 54th, where the Roundabout Theater at Studio 54 sits. (Only a half-dozen theaters have literal Broadway addresses: the Minskoff, at 45th Street; the Marquis, at 46th; the Palace, stretching out off 47th;

and the Winter Garden, at 50th; and, of course, the Broadway, at 53rd Street. All other theaters are east or west of this stretch.)

“Off-Broadway” in one sense did actually refer to theaters not in that district; in fact, the Greenwich Village theatrical movement was in part a revolt against the “establishment.” But not only is the term increasingly loose, but the importance of a “Broadway” address also is to some extent a matter of publicity, and the spiritual line between some on-Broadway and Off-Broadway venues is getting fuzzier. Many of the more “uptown” Off-Broadway houses have pretty much been assimilated, whereas the downtown Off-Broadway troupes, many of whom may once have been rather antiestablishment, are threatening to mellow into the high-culture circuit. And theaters such as the Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street; # 212-564-1235; www.playwrightshorizons.org) and Roundabout

(227 West 42nd Street; # 212-719-1300; www.roundabouttheatre.org), despite their Great White Way addresses, have Off-Broadway attitudes.

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The Manhattan Theater Club produces shows on and off Broadway, often simultaneously.

Among the best-known Off-Broadway venues are the ambitious Minetta Lane Theater (18 Minetta Lane; # 212-420-8000); Cherry Lane Theatre, founded by Edna St. Vincent Millay (38 Commerce Street;

#212-989-2020; www.cherrylanetheatre.org); the Classic Stage Company (136 East 13th Street, # 212-677-4210, ext. 10; www.classicstage

.org); the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street; # 212-924- 2817; www.lortel.org); the Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15th Street;

#212-353-0303; www.vineyardtheatre.org); the Atlantic Theater Company (336 West 20th Street; # 212-691-5919; www.atlantictheater

.org); the Joyce Theater (175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th; # 212-691- 9740; www.joyce.org), which also showcases many dance troupes; Joseph Papp’s six-hall Public Theater, in the onetime free library near Astor Place (425 Lafayette Street; # 212-539-8500; www.publictheater

.org), and the Astor Place Theatre across the street, home of Blue Man

Group’s wildly creative multimedia extravaganzas (434 Lafayette;

# 800-BLUEMAN; www.blueman.com); Players Theatre, near Washington Square (115 MacDougal Street; # 212-475-1449; www.theplayers theatre.com); and Union Square Theatre (100 East 17th Street and Park Avenue; # 212-505-0700).

Similarly, Off-Off-Broadway refers less to an address (generally downtown, though it may be Village, East Village, SoHo, or Brooklyn) than to a mind-set. It used to imply experimental or avant-garde productions, satires, debut productions, and sometimes just deeply serious art, and to a great extent it still does. But sometimes productions that are destined (or at least intended) to make their way to Broadway get their final editings here. Among the most visible are the Manhattan Theater Club (Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, # 212-239- 6200), and at New York City Center, 130 West 56th Street,

#212-581-1212; www.mtc-nyc.org); the multimedia-minded Kitchen (512 West 19th Street; # 212-255-5793; www.thekitchen.org); Ohio Theatre in SoHo (66 Wooster Street; # 212-966-4844; www.sohothink tank.org); the four-stage Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue;

#212-254-1109; www.theaterforthenewcity.net) and nearby Performance Space 122 in the East Village (150 First Avenue at East Ninth;

#212-352-3101; www.ps122.org); and New York Theatre Workshop

(79 East Fourth Street; # 212-460-5475; www.nytw.org). For more list-

ings, check the newspapers and Web sites mentioned previously.

S O M E T H I N G F O R F R E E ?

I T M AY B E H A R D TO B E L I E V E , but New York does have free theater. The most famous is Shakespeare in the Park. Central Park’s Delacorte Theater is the summer home to the company that otherwise holds forth at the Papp Public Theater near Astor Place. It’s a matter of principle, or at least of sentiment, for some of the biggest stars of stage and screen to do their stints in the open air: Patrick Stewart, Andre

P E R F O R M I N G A R T S 4 1 7

Braugher, Kevin Kline, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Pfeiffer have all trod the B(o)ards here.

Tickets are given out on a first-come, first-served basis at the Delacorte Theater beginning at 1 p.m. the day of show, but you’d better be there long before that. You can double your chances of getting in by sending an ally down to the Papp box office, at 425 Lafayette Street (# 212-539-8500; www.publictheater.org) between 1 and 3 p.m.; only two tickets per person, but that’s better than none. Furthermore, on selected dates, tickets will be distributed in each of the five boroughs; visit www.publictheater.org for details.

As mentioned, every summer, Lincoln Center Out of Doors hosts free concerts of all types and dance parties, many with lessons beforehand. And the smaller outdoor Shakespeare groups that play in places such as Washington Square and Riverside Park are local favorites.

You may even be surprised by the quality of the free subway entertainment. Although some performances aren’t officially sanctioned, the MUNY (Music Under New York) program of the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) allows musicians to perform “legally” and grants them a special banner to prove that they have gone through the application process and passed a competitive audition. More than 100 sanctioned acts, individuals or ensembles, perform more than 150 times, somewhere in the subway system, each week. Times Square and

Union Square are usually fixed spots. See www.mta.info/mta/aft/ muny. Impromptu free entertainment is common during the summer in many New York parks.

O T H E R P E R F O R M A N C E V E N U E S

A S M E N T I O N E D E A R L I E R , the New York City Ballet calls Lincoln

Center home, but that is far from the only premier dance troupe that plays Manhattan. The American Ballet Theatre (# 212-477-3030; www.abt.org) and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (# 212- 405-9000; www.alvinailey.org) use New York City Center; other companies book the Joyce Theater.

Major rock, pop, reggae, soul, and country concerts are apt to be held, like most everything else, in Madison Square Garden (# 212- 465-MSG1; www.thegarden.com), but other popular concert venues include MSG’s smaller annex, the WaMu Theater; the Orpheum, in the East Village (126 Second Avenue; www.stomponline.com), longtime home of the rousingly percussive show Stomp; the revived Apollo Theater (West 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard; # 212- 531-5305; www.apollotheater.org); the Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center Studios (311 West 34th Street; # 212-279-7740; www

.mcstudios.com); Symphony Space (2537 Broadway, at 95th; # 212- 864-5400; www.symphonyspace.org); and Roseland Ballroom (239 West 52nd Street; # 212-247-0200; www.roselandballroom.com).

After a $15 million restoration, the Beacon Theatre (Broadway and 74th Street; # 212-465-6500; www.beacontheatre.com) is back in a

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big way, hosting major concerts as it has for more than 80 years; it’s also to be one of Cirque du Soleil’s extended-play homes in the city. And if rock dinosaurs are your generation, but not quite your taste, more mainstream names in dance, music, and performance, ranging from Garrison Keillor to Yes, Judy Collins to Ballet Folklórico de México, show up at (123 West 43rd Street; # 212-840- 2824; www.the-townhall-nyc.org).

C A M E R A S A N D C L O S E - U P S

I F YO U ’ R E I N T E R E S T E D in one of the television talk or talk-

and-entertainment shows, you most likely need to try to get

tickets ahead of time—at least six or eight weeks. In the case of Saturday Night Live, it’s a matter of seasons rather than weeks. Tickets for the whole taping season are awarded by lottery every August. E-mail requests are accepted that month only at snltickets@nbcuni

.com—and even then winners get only two seats for a randomly selected date. (There have been rumors that this is more for show than for the show, but hey, that’s show biz.) For ticket information, call # 212-664-3056 or see www.nbc.com/Footer/Tickets (note: Web address is case-sensitive).

Most seats are a little easier to score, but almost all requests should be sent in several months in advance. (For Live with Regis and Kelly, the wait can be a year!) Of course, if you regularly watch the shows, you probably already know this. (What happens if your favorite personality gets canceled in the meantime? It probably means his name is not Jay Leno.)

Most shows limit not only the number of tickets you can get, but also how often you can get them—once every six months is not unusual. You should also be aware that most shows have age limits (and even if they don’t, kids won’t be allowed without adults).

On the other hand, nobody likes empty chairs, even a couple, to show up on camera. So if you’re still longing for that wild and crazy SNL moment, and you feel lucky, go over to Rockefeller Plaza no later than 7 on Saturday morning, stand around on the sidewalk on 49th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues (where the NBC STUDIOS marquee is), get your face on television in the background of the Today show, and keep an eye on the 49th Street entrance to 30 Rockefeller Plaza. By about 9:15 a.m., not every week and with no guarantees, a few standby tickets to Saturday Night Live (either the dress rehearsal at 8:30 p.m. or the live taping at 11:30) may be passed out. If you do get

in, prepare to arrive by 7:15 p.m. for the dress

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the NBC Studio Tour desk, on the second floor of the NBC Experience store. However, it’s best to call the ticket line (# 212-664-3056) the night before to make sure there is actually going to be a show— sometimes tapings take place several days in advance of their air dates, and during certain weeks the show is dark. If you want to be one of those music fans hanging over the bleachers behind the special guests, you can enter a special online sweepstakes at www.latenight withjimmyfallon.com.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tapes Monday through Thursday starting at 5:45 p.m. at 513 West 54th Street (between Tenth and Eleventh avenues). Call # 212-586-2477 for information, but at press time tickets were being distributed only online through www.thedaily show.com.

More-daytime-oriented fans can try for standby tickets for The View by going to ABC Studios, at 320 West 66th Street (near West End Avenue) at the audience-entrance door between 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Seating is first come, first served—but be warned: the ladies have become so popular that there’s a oneto two-year wait for tickets, and sometimes the show distributes more tickets than the studio can hold. Sort of like an airline.

As mentioned, Live with Regis and Kelly also has a year’s wait. If you want to try, call # 212-456-1000, or see the mailing address at bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/regisandkelly. For day-of standby tickets, go to the studio, at 7 Lincoln Square (on the southeast corner of Columbus Avenue and 67th Street), but be sure to arrive by 7 a.m. to get a standby number. Audiences enter for warmup at 8 a.m. or the taping at 9 a.m.

The Martha Stewart Show tapes three times a week (generally Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.). You’ll have to go to Martha’s Web site (www.marthastewart.com) well in advance to get confirmed seats—because of the erratic schedule, you name a week you’d like to come, though you can specify a preference for the day of the week or ask to be part of a special-interest audience. (This is one of the few shows that allow larger groups to apply for tickets.) Or you can go to Chelsea Television Studios at 221 West 26th Street, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, about two hours before showtime and hope for an opening. Can’t get in? You can always go shopping in her on-site store.

Emeril Lagasse tapes Emeril Live at the Food Network’s Chelsea studios at 75 Ninth Avenue (between 15th and 16th streets) on a somewhat erratic schedule, usually in bursts of a couple of weeks several times a year; these tapings, and the lottery for tickets, are obviously intended for serious fans, so they’re announced via the Food Network Web site (www.foodnetwork.com/emeril-live) and newsletter. But if you’re a serious fan, you probably already subscribe. . . .

Or you can just horn in on the alfresco audiences for the morning shows: Good Morning America (on the east side of Broadway, between 43rd and 44th streets) and Today (in Rockefeller Plaza,