it'll be a surprise

A whole bunch of theatres - live, singing, and drama theatres - nationwide are sponsoring a Free Night of Theatre deely-bob across the country on October 15th. All the metropolis(es) are participating and D.C. is contribuing loads of tickets. You already know that we try to get out and gawk at the singers, dancers, and actors as often as possible; I more often than the Eleven, but we do all right (X saw Helen Mirren last week in Phedre but she's too busy to give you a proper review). The Free Night allows people to get two free tickets to a load of shows around D.C. (I think 26 theatres in all) with just about every company participating from the Washington National Opera to my beloved Keegan Theatre crew. Tickets were available online yesterday from noon - with a warning that the nearly 4,000 would would go quickly - so I pulled- up the site at noon, in violation of my 'be at the site, locked-and-loaded' at least fifteen minutes early. I'd perused all the offerings and given X some options this morning based on available nights, Caps hockey games, rock n' roll shows, Gung Fu, and piano lessons. She put her finger on Lost in Yonkers at the D.C. JCC's Theater J. (We've been to Theater J before to see Sandra Bernhard's one-woman show last year.) I think she made the choice when measured against some of the heavier stuff I had on offer. Anyway, back to noon today. I'm good with tickets - the procuring of and quality seating therin - so I was confident I'd easily manage two for Yonkers. As a measure of ticket fights, I got two tickets for the Capitals v. Penguins Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semis last season with less difficulty. I know it's mostly driven by the ones and zeros in the Internets but I was stonewalled at every turn - the freaky theatre goers in D.C. are hardcore. There's no way that site didn't crash at about 12:01pm yesterday. In fact, my building's power fluxed just after and I'm sure it was due to the bourgeois class trying to get free tickets to shows. (Since I pay for my season tickets to the Opera and Woolly Mammoth should I have stayed away and let others in? I pondered the moral hazard argument.) After nearly twenty minutes of hitting the 'site is overloaded and you can go to Hell' error message I did finally manage to get two for a Saturday night in D.C.

You never know when you might be foiled. Live with that motto.