ANGELS IN AMERICA Cancellation Line?

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 9/26/10 at 7:26pm

Has anyone tried this yet? What time should you usually get there, where should you go, and what's your likelihood of snagging a seat?

[NuMystic]

Posted: 9/30/10 at 1:37am

I too would love to have an idea of how early I should plan on lining up to catch the shows in October.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 9/30/10 at 2:04am

Going by this past weekend, I'd say that two hours in advance should be plenty of time. The show was outstanding.


To clarify, if the show starts at 8pm, you have to fill out a cancellation card at 7pm (with your name, number of tickets, etc), so plan to get there two hours in advance at 5pm. You should be fine. Updated On: 9/30/10 at 02:04 AM

[heo1128]

Posted: 9/30/10 at 3:02am

Were the cancellation tickets $20?

[playlover2010]

Posted: 9/30/10 at 10:16am

Yes, all waiting list tickets are $20. The show is so good, it's worth WELL more than that. The night I went at least 10 people got in, maybe even more.

[fallingawake]

Posted: 10/17/10 at 6:58pm

I was wondering what the status of the standby line has been, especially for matinees on the weekend? Also what is the current running time of each part? Thanks!!

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 11/22/10 at 7:37pm

Bump? Any info?

[starlyricist]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 11:56am

Bump. I have Pt 2 tix before Pt 1 and really want to try for Pt 1 tix this weekend. Has anyone done this recently?

[steveshack]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 12:12pm

This is best theatrical experience I've had in years. It's absolutely incredible. The review I wrote on my blog:

PART ONE

First, I've never seen Angels before, so I cannot compare this to past productions. Secondly, I have AIDS and was almost as sick as the character of Prior, in and out of hospitals -- and I remember the fever dreams and the cold sweats and the rage. The rage that actor Christian Borle drags up from the depths of his soul. It's so real. My eyes begin to tear up even as I write this.

I could go through the rest of this incredible cast, one by one, because every performance is now seared into my soul.

But let me tell you just how great Zachary Quinto is. Like most, I know him only as the evil Sylar or Spock. His stage presence is electrifying and grounded, all at the same time. Not a single false moment. This man commands a stage with subtle body movements, at once masculine and then feminine and then masculine again, as the character tries to find his own soul, even as he abandons the one person he loves. Chilling. Mesmerizing. Helpless. Forceful.

His tearful breakdown in the bathroom in act one, snot dripping, eyes pouring tears, and yet all contained and controlled by both actor and character. Sylar and Spock are driven from my memory banks. He's nothing like them, a consummate, skilled actor whose scenes with Prior are chilling and desperate and scary and loud, and haunting and brave. (Yes, brave. In the first park scene, where he begs for sex, he completely exposes himself and the scene is so anti-erotic in its desperation, I forgot how sexy the man is).

Three hours felt like three minutes. The play is more than I ever dreamed it could be. Tangled storylines that breathe with life and humor and anger and determination, thrillingly performed and perfectly staged.

And all of it so close to us in the little space, where tickets are $20 apiece. I would have paid $1000 (if I had that much to spend).

And that was just Part One.


PART TWO (the next night):

This morning, after reading the mostly cold, intellectual reviews comparing this "Angels" to past "Angels" and these actors to past actors, I can only state that I will never be a critic, do not envy their jobs, and am thankful that I don't have to be one. Because what I read so missed the forest for the trees, that I almost feel sorry for them.

I sat riveted in my seat, on the edge of tears, overwhelmed with so much emotion and memory of the days when AZT was considered so valuable, people fought for it.

When I was first diagnosed, right about the time this play came out, AZT was considered, as Prior says at the end, poison. People were wearing them like necklaces, warning others off. And when I tried AZT, my body rejected it so violently, that I had to pull my car over in Los Angeles and vomit in the street.

So, seeing Roy Cohn's small refrigerator full of the stuff, and Belize the nurse taking it and stealing bottles away, begging for it, I was transported back to that era where nobody knew nothing, and having AIDS meant absolute death.

In part 2 of Angels, the supernatural encounters with the angel made zero intellectual sense to me, but emotionally? All the sense in the world. Critics carping on the politics in Angels may make a valid intellectual point, but those scenes (both with the angel and with Zachary Quinto's riveting, lost, wandering Louis) provided, for me, the breath/space that I needed to take in order to process all the base level anger that is the bedrock of this piece -- and which resides, painfully and eloquently in the huge, all-seeing eyes of Christian Borle's Prior.

Before, I mentioned how I never saw Angels before because I was that sick man dying in that bed when it came out. I couldn't watch the HBO version because I just... couldn't. It was too close. Too soon for me.

So, last night, after feeling alternated smacked down and emotionally slaughtered, then inspired and lifted up by part one, I can tell you that part two seemed to go by even faster.

I got to briefly meet Tony Kushner last night and I told him that I was thankful for the surrealism because I don't know how else one could honestly, and with depth, describe what 1985 felt like. The world, for most of us in the gay and gay-supportive community was, literally, crashing down around us and death was our constant companion. We needed desperately to awake to a new world, God had deserted us, and mourning black was the only color that bound us all together.

When Prior wrestles with the angel, now sheathed in black, and ascends to a feckless, hopeless, ridiculously unempowered "heaven," where angels dressed like judges stood around helplessly wondering what the hell is going on down on earth, disconnected, and unable to act or even feel, as they stuttered "I.. I.. I.." it was the perfect metaphor for empty religious promises and the phoniness of "prophets" or even thought that one could be a prophet. Prior's basic "**** you" to God and the rest of the celestial do-nothings was searing.

Because, once the fever breaks, you're left with the few who care and ones who held your hand, whether it's a Mormon mom or that nurse that stuck it out and cared for you when it seemed like no one else could. (Unlike Prior, I had a husband who never left my side). But the thing about disease, as someone in the play says, you have to endure it alone because no one can feel what you feel or live what you're living, no matter how close they are.

See, I cannot "review" a show like this. I was too busy living inside the show. Was Zoe Kazan a "good" Harper? Was Frank Wood appropriately "mean" as Roy Cohn? Was the Mormon story "too" much an emotional center? I felt Harper's naked helplessness and Cohn's denialist rage against his own mortality, and Louis using his own rants against Cohn as a substitute target for his own self-hatred and betrayal was perfectly pitched. His hatred of Cohn had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with a guilty man staring into a mirror, begging to be beaten, which is why he needed and pushed the wandering/weak Joe to beat the **** out of him.

I'm glad I missed the grand spectacle of the Broadway version because this intensely personal, pain-wracked play, which plays like a theatrical Incredible Hulk, bursting from his street clothes in order to stomp around the stage, smashing dioramas of ridiculous Mormons and laying waste to the streets of San Francisco, and the emptiness of the false promises of a heavenly savior, wakes up in the real world, a little smaller and little more human than how it came in, with people still imagining a better future that, in history's hindsight, reveals that the only better world you can create is within.

The Perestroika that seemed so promising gives way to Putin. The Red Menace, so scary before, is now wearing Muslim garb and the promise of Obama falls before Sarah Palin's Tea Party, and where today's Roy Cohn is named Karl Rove.

In many ways, the naivete of the characters at the end of Angels is just as politically and religiously ignorant as when they came in. And that's the world.

That's why this play, for me, is so rich. And that's why it works on this tiny human scale, where we all stand shivering in the Antarctic, alone, because, in the end, power, politics, and religion will fail. But faith -- and love -- in each other, and in ourselves -- to wrestle the angel to the ground -- is where our true salvation lies.
Living in the Bonus Round

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 12:39pm

It sounds spectacular, really, but now do we have any way to see it? Standby?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 12:54pm

Steve, I really appreciated reading your post. I agree that many of the reviewers seemed to have folded their arms across their chests with a "show me" attitude to this revival.

I do think John Larh got it right in The New Yorker:
Angels

[steveshack]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 6:00pm

Namo, thanks for that link. It's nice to know someone else saw the play that I did. I was furious at the complacent critics who could not see this show for what it was, and it made me happy to know I don't have to be one of them.

[nybound66]

Posted: 11/26/10 at 8:30pm

For Sunday's matinee, would it be safe to get there at 10am? Or should I try sooner?

Any advice?

[mormonophobic]

Posted: 11/27/10 at 2:38am

A few weeks back, I was able to get tickets for a Sunday matinee and I got there at 11. I was also the first person in line. Hopw that helps.

Oh, and I'm not sure if this is a regular occurrence, but still: if it happens to be a day where they are showing Millennium Approaches in the afternoon and Perestroika, you might be able to see both. Since I was told to be there with a few hours to spare, I assumed I'd see the two parts on different days. However, I got out of Part 1 and only saw one person in the line. The show moved me so much that waiting was not an option.

So I rushed over to the CVS down the street, grabbed a bottled Frappuccino and one of those single-serving things of Cocoa Krispies. I then rushed back to wait in the cold for hours. That was my dinner, and this was my day. Still a very worthwhile expenditure, considering what I got in return definitely surpassed $40.

On a final note, thank you so much for sharing all of that, steveshack. You put into words some of what I was feeling about this incredible piece of theater. The rest of what you wrote was just beautifully written and something I am glad to have read.

[matty159]

Posted: 11/27/10 at 10:34am

steveshack, thank you so much for that wonderful post. Having seen Perestroika last night made reading that even more poignant.

I am so glad that people are having good luck with the cancellation line as this is such an important show for everyone to see.

Angels has always held a special place in my heart since I saw it for the first time on Broadway in 1993, the summer after my senior year of high school. I have seen numerous productions (both good and awful) and have watched the HBO miniseries many times as well. It is absolutely my favorite piece of theater and means a great deal to me personally (so much so that both of the original pieces of artwork are tattooed on me).

Thus, it was with excitement and trepidation that I went into the theater last night. steveshack used the word "riveted" and that fits here beautifully. The production at the Signature is just that. Not a weak link in the whole production. I could be effusive and go on for days about it. But, I will just say that it surpasses in excellence anything I have seen in a very long time. Memories of last night will linger forever. As I rose to my feet for the curtain call with tears streaming down my face and chills throughout my body, I knew I had seen something really special.

I am very excited to see Millennium on 12/17 and hope to do cancellation line to see it in a marathon day before it closes. While it would be lovely to see this transfer into a smaller Broadway house for an extended commercial run, the intimacy that it has now cannot be matched.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 11/27/10 at 8:36pm

The show was amazing. I saw part one today and could go on and on, but I'd be repeating everything everyone else said.

But to FINALLY answer the question originally asked, I did the standby line. I got there at 11 (2 hours before they distribute cards at 1) and was the first one there. Came back at 11:45 and I was the second person there. I could have easily have shown up at 12:15 or 12:30 and gotten a good space on line. At 1 they take the names of everyone in line on cards and tell you to come back in half an hour. At 1:45 (OUTSIDE, very important, if you're in the lobby you'll miss it) they started calling names off the list to come in and purchase tickets. It was $20 for a stair seat, which was a little uncomfortable but well worth it. It seems like they have about 16 standby seats to offer and pretty much everyone who was on the line got in.

I would recommend about an hour before (two hours before the performance) if you want to get a seat for sure.

[illuminate the night]

Posted: 12/9/10 at 5:23pm

Bumping this up to see if anyone's tried more recently.

[misto625]

Posted: 12/12/10 at 4:27pm

Bumping as well to ask about weekend cancellations

[Just_John]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 6:21am

A lot of people got in from the line Saturday for both parts. I'm pretty sure everyone who was tried. The people in front of the line got stair seats though, while people further back got actual seats which I didn't think was fair, but what can you do?

[tking001]

Posted: 12/17/10 at 9:31am

I want to try tomorrow for both parts. What time would you guys suggest getting there.?
Also is it cash only or do they accept Credit cards?
Also how is it lkely that I'd get tickets for Part 1 and Part 2
Can I get Part 1 & 2 at the same time?
How does it work when u want tickets for both parts?
Also how long do the 2 shows run(Time wise)?

Thanks for all the help
I hear its an amazing piece of theatre

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 12/18/10 at 2:23am

It is cash only. I got there at about 6:30 tonight and I got in, but I think that might have only been because 2 people in front of me were sold extra tickets by other patrons outside who were trying to get rid of them. I got an actual seat, row F to be exact and it was perfect. I'd say if you definitely want a seat get there an hour or so before they start bringing people in from the standby line.

The show itself was beautiful. I love the HBO miniseries but I had never seen it onstage and I'm so happy this was my first experience with it in a theater. There was really not a weak link in the cast, but I especially loved Christian Borle, Zoe Kazan, and Zachary Quinto. Christian in particular surprised me...I enjoyed him in Legally Blonde and was sort of indifferent to him in Mary Poppins but he was really fantastic in this. I can't wait to see Perestroika.