With the price of theater tickets today, choosing a show for yourself, a date, or your family is no small investment. So it’s important to choose carefully what you’re going to see. There’s no wrong answer to the question, “What’s good at the theater?” the real question is, “What’s good for you?”
Musical or Play
All theater is artifice to some degree. You are suspending disbelief to allow living, breathing people, standing just a few feet from you, to pretend to be other characters doing made-up things.
Musicals require a bit more of that suspension of disbelief. Let’s face it, most of us don’t break into song at particularly joyful, tense, sad, or dramatic moments. We don’t dance in unison. Music does not accompany our lives.
For people who like musicals, this is no problem. If it’s too hard for you to get over, don’t see a musical. (But as a musical kind of guy, let me give a plug for them. Often, music can affect us at deep levels, places we didn’t know we had places. If you can suspend your disbelief, get into the show, you might be surprised how touched you are.)
Plays are one of our oldest art forms. (Some scholars believe Job to be among the oldest books in the Bible and that it is a play.) Something special happens when an actor takes the stage. There is not only the plot of the show, but the fact that it is being played out live, right in front of you, that connects you to it.
And here’s a little secret, actors want you to connect with the show, with their performance. It’s part of what makes live theater so exciting.
Comedy or Drama
Whether you’ve chosen a musical or a play, next you want to choose the type of night you’re in for. Again, the immediacy of theater, the closeness of actor to audience, makes this an important choice.
Today, musical theater can be every bit as intense dramatically as plays. For instance, Spring Awakening uses contemporary music in a play about sexual repression among teenagers set in the 19th century.
Plays, of course, can pack the same punch. August: Osage County is a three-hour dysfunctional-family feud and not for the faint of heart.
On the flip side, Boeing-Boeing is a good, old-fashioned sex farce, based on a French play and brought to us courtesy of those sex-farce experts – the British.
Avenue Q uses puppets and Sesame Street-like sets for laugh-a-minute lampooning of just about everyone.
The bottom line is to gauge your mood, and the mood of anyone accompanying you, and choose accordingly.
Adults-Only or Family-Friendly
Theaters are far less strict (and less regulated) as to the age of its patrons. It’s as important to choose wisely for children accompanying you to the theater as it is to choose the right genre of show to see.
The good news is theater is robust today. More people are going, and more people are participating. There is little better way to encourage children to want to see theater or to be in theater than to go to theater.
There are numerous, outstanding children’s theaters across the country. A couple come to mind, the Minneapolis Children’s Theater Company is a Tony-winning house, and Fort Worth’s Casa Manana Children’s Playhouse sells out every season. It's safe to say your community or one near you has children’s theater.
However, you don’t have to limit a child’s theatrical experience to children-only fare. Musicals such as The Lion King move adults as well as children.
Also, you don’t have to limit your theater-going to musicals. One among many examples is The 39 Steps, a fast-paced comic train ride that can entertain anyone old enough to get in the theater.
Making the Choice
Your best bet to see theater in your town or any other, New York included, is to get online.
My site on About.com lists most shows currently on Broadway and can give you access to discount ticket sites for New York, London, and every major U.S. city.
You should always do a search on a show you’re thinking of attending to get a brief description of the work.
Finally, share your research with anyone going with you, particularly children. Anyone can love Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music in The Phantom of the Opera, but everyone enjoys the show more if they have a summary of the fantastic, operatic plot in mind before the curtain goes up.