The Lion King - Buffalo - Student Rush

[ohjustjake]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 9:25am

Has anyone on this board gone to see The Lion King in Buffalo and done student rush? I got the email saying they're offering it 1 hour before curtain for $25, and that it includes all price levels for seats. I was just wondering if anyone had done their student rush, where their seats were, and if it there were a lot of people there for the rush?

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 9:58am

Not sure about student rush, but I saw the show Saturday night. I saw it when it came to town six years ago too and I have to say this time, it all felt a bit underwhelming. The whole show just seemed to be lacking spark and energy. Even during that breathtaking opening, I kept saying to myself 'Where's the energy in the vocals? Sing louder! Sing LOUDER!' "I Just Can't Wait To Be King' has never packed the punch of the song in the movie, and an uninspired cast really exposes what is a very weak book (it's Disney, not Shakespeare, I get it.. but still..)

Rafiki (sp?), Nala and Zazu were the standout performers. Everyone else just seemed to be going through the motions, unfortunately. With all that said, I'd still encourage anyone who's never seen it to GO SEE IT. It still remains the most visually stunning musical I've ever seen.

[ohjustjake]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 12:50pm

Zamedy, I was hoping you would respond haha.

Yeah, I saw it 6 years ago as well and loved it, and now my best friends wants to go so I figured we might student rush it. A lot of shows don't do rush in Buffalo so I was surprised when Shea's emailed me about it. I just don't want to take her and then get really bad seats just because it's student rush, so I was hoping maybe someone else had rushed and got decent seats. I guess we will see!

[Ajpuppypal]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 1:04pm

I saw Mary Poppins at the Shea on a student rush ticket and the seats weren't to bad but for $25 it was fine we still everything fine.

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/10/11 at 10:24pm

Yeah I didn't know they were doing rush either. Let me know how it goes, ohjustjake. Now knowing this, I might try to rush it w/my friend on Saturday.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 10/11/11 at 1:37am

I've done student rush for a few shows that have come to Shea's (CAMELOT, IN THE HEIGHTS, etc.) and the seats have always varied. For CAMELOT I was down in the orchestra all the way to the side, but for IN THE HEIGHTS I was in the last section.

But i've always said, there is not a bad seat in that house.

Glad to see a few WNY-ers on here!

[ohjustjake]

Posted: 10/17/11 at 3:18pm

I'm planning on going this Friday to see it - I'll let you know if the student rush works out. Zamedy - did you end up trying it?

[zamedy]

Posted: 10/17/11 at 10:06pm

No.. didn't try for rush this past weekend. Thinking about possibly this Saturday.

[ohjustjake]

Posted: 10/22/11 at 8:43am

Went to the show last night - Got to the box office around 7 and there was a line but I wasn't worried. The guy ended up giving me and my friend Row A seats 3 and 5! They turned out to be really great seats - I had never sat front row at Shea's before and was a little worried because the stage is so high, but you didn't really miss anything. It was really nice to see the show up close too - I'm sure my best friend would like to see it again a little further away just to see everything a little better in the big picture, but she absolutely loved it. Also, because my seat was on the aisle, I got to see all the animals come down, including the elephant.

The show is really great shape. I noticed that the set had downsized just a bit - I noticed that the floor didn't rise in the back in that half circle shape like it used to, and I remember in Act 2 when Mufasa's face appears that it was in a bigger set, but it's now just in front of a black curtain. Other than that, everything looked and sounded great. I was worried from other reviews that the show was going to feel tired, but I didn't get that impression at all. Maybe I caught it on a really good night - everyone seemed really spot on and all of the leads did great, especially Rafiki and Adult Simba.

Zamedy, good luck at student rush if you go today :)