Indulge me - oddest circumstance for going to a bway show - please add your

That might already win the prize.

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I had never been to a closing night performance before, and I happened to be in NYC when HIGH FIDELITY posted its closing notice. So I saw the (14th) and final performance in the last row of the Orch, and standing behind me was the creative team. I was able to hear them commenting to each other throughout the entire show about memorable rehearsal moments, moments in the show that worked and didn't work, etc. It was like listening to a commentary track on a DVD. While it would generally be distracting to other audience members, I rather enjoyed it.

Also, I happened to be in NYC when the COMPANY revival closed. I walked by TKTS and saw that tickets were on sale for the closing show. So I went and caught Raul Esparza's electrifying performance for a sexond time.

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Not on Broadway - but at the West End!

It was around the years of the financial crisis in Asia and we were asked to make a corporate presentation to international foreign fund managers ( USA/ UK/ Other Europe)in London. I was reluctant to go having apprehensions about facing a crowd of potential and existing shareholders about an increasingly difficult situation for banks.

I did go on this trip ( 15 flying hours, one way!) - spent a great deal of time on the presentation - and hardly had time to get any decent tickets for any theatre shows ( which I usually plan for quite well when I go on a business trip). I was eager to go to one particular show because it featured two of my favourite composers and I hadn't seen any of their shows live - so, even if my tickets were in the mezzanine, I was excited to go.

Initially, I was a little disappointed as I thought the sets were sort of drab ( in contrast to the lively movie version I had once seen)...but as the show had unfolded and the leading man surprised me with his strong musical theatre voice and his commanding stage presence ( I was in dress circle - mezz, front row - but I could hardly see his face - poor vision on my part), I had begun to think that this was something special! I don't think I even had a copy of the playbill to read about the show and the unknown leading man ( to me, anyway).

And that was my introduction to Hugh Jackman and the RNT's well-acclaimed revival transfer to the Lyceum of OKLAHOMA!

Btw, the corporate presentation went well, too

Updated On: 8/7/09 at 11:59 PM

I am only a 1.5 train ride away from the city, so I don't have any crazy "I took a last minute flight" stories. Sometimes I have made really spontaneous trips into the city. One time I woke up and decided I needed to see a show. I finalized plans for someone to pick me up rush tickets about 20 minutes before I needed to leave, and I caught a train into the city sometime after 12 p.m. I saw the 3 p.m. performance of A Chorus Line that day.

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>>> jo:

that is a great story - have you been back to anything else over there? <<<

Lots of time - my last few shows to see in London were HAIRSPRAY and KISMET ( both with Michael Ball, another favorite musical theatre star with me), Trevor Nunn's ill-fated GONE WITH THE WIND, BILLY ELLIOT ( which I had also seen on Broadway) and a many others over the years. I like London and also many European cities and London is usually the gateway city. It is also a welcome coincidence that London is a great theatre town.

I am only a 1.5 train ride away from the city, so I don't have any crazy "I took a last minute flight" stories. Sometimes I have made really spontaneous trips into the city. One time I woke up and decided I needed to see a show.

I'm just as far away but in the opposite direction. There have been times when I've, randomly, decided to see a show. I remember I decided to see a show the night after the strike ended. I choose Drowsy and Cindy Williams was sitting two rows in front of me.

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On a Sunday morning after I leave work I will drive 1 1/2 hrs to the bus station and spend almost 2hrs. on the bus(in which I sleep) to NYC,catch a show or two(if there is an evening show that I want to see) and come home that night. I spend up to 8hrs roundtrip to see a show or two. Did that all last summer and most of this summer also.

I also drove to Cleveland, Oh.(which is over 5hrs one way) to see the 1NT of Wicked and drove back that night. The day before there was a blizzard and the day I drove it was snowing the whole way from Harrisburg, Pa.(where I'm from) to Cleveland.

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I live in northern NJ, very easy access to NY theaters, so I don't have a great NY story. I do however, have a West End story. A few years back, my oldest daughter went on a soccer trip to England. I went along as a parent, but not an official chaperone. We were staying in the town of Colchester, about an hour outside of London, but the trip had a day of sightseeing in London. My daughter and I spent the day cramming as many sights as we could into our eight hours, and we met the group back at the bus at 6PM as planned. We were getting ready to get back on the bus, and I made a hasty decision that I have never regretted. I found the guy running the trip, and told him I was staying in town to catch a show. I knew there was a train station in Colchester, but I had no idea how often or how late the trains ran. Omitting some of the additional details, I got tickets to the Witches Of Eastwick, found my way back to our hotel in Colchester via taxi/train/taxi, thanks to much assistance from to some very helpful citizens of London.

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It wasn't Broadway, but six or seven years ago I was living in St Louis and found out Jennifer Holliday was doing Dreamgirls in Atlanta. Three friends of mine and I got tickets and were going to make a little vacation out of it.

A few weeks before the show, I was cast as a last minute replacement in a play, and the tech week was the same week as Dreamgirls. Since I had already had the tickets for Dreamgirls (and the fact that the company that cast me had dicked me around and cast two people before me who dropped out before finally casting me) I wasn't going to miss it, but knew that I was only going to be able to be out for that one rehearsal (which was a Tuesday night). My friends and I left St Louis early Tuesday morning, got to Atlanta around four in the afternoon, had dinner, saw the show and turned around and came back. I think the entire trip door to door was twenty-six hours.

Or the theme from Psycho.

I went to college about 2 1/2 hours out of Chicago. Last year, right around my birthday, I mentioned to a friend that I still hadn't seen Wicked, and neither did he. We had no plans for the day, so he went on-line, bought tickets (as a birthday gift), and we drove down that night.

I was very disappointed in the show, but we had fun.

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Not a Broadway story, but when I was studying in Prague, I went to Vienna for one night to see Rebecca. And while visiting a friend in Norway, we found out Chicago was playing in Copenhagen, so we flew out there for a night a couple days later. Neither was really last minute, but going to another country has to count for something, right?