Theater Super Fans Helping Bank A Broadway Boom
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Broadway is having its best-selling theater season ever, and audience members who keep returning to see the same shows over again are playing into that box office windfall.
"To see something and have that moment in the show, you know you have to come back and see it again," said Jo Ann Veneziano of Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.
Veneziano told CBS2's Dave Carlin she's seen the original Broadway production of "Spring Awakening" a whopping 533 times, and her newest favorite show is "Come From Away."
"I saw that 50 or 60 times," she said.
She said she thinks she knows what her next performance obsession will be: Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel."
With the average Broadway ticket costing $123 this season, and some of the biggest shows costing much more, the price of such affection can get steep.
Veneziano notes she's not rich, and a big percentage of her salary as a human resources manager -- she won't say exactly how much -- is spent on the show tickets.
She admits her parents have expressed concern, that this love of the stage is extreme.
"They think it's crazy, but there are so many worse things I can be doing," she said.
Broadway has been on an upswing for five years, and grosses were a record-breaking $1.7 billion this past season.
Some super fans say last-minute tickets, discount ticket websites and a willingness to see a show alone helps them afford their Broadway obsessions.
"There are ways to make it happen if you want it happen," said Dani Maureau of Queens.
Maureau said on her limited school teacher salary, she can still repeatedly see shows she loves by going online.
"I get access to last-minute discounted tickets, the same deal with the TKTS booths," she said.
Sometimes people want to see how a show plays when a new star steps in, while other productions come up with special promotions.
At matinee day for "Mean Girls the Broadway Musical," lots of people in pink line up for a promotion every Wednesday. The color of their clothing gets them into a lottery for discounted tickets.
"I've been obsessed with 'Mean Girls' ever since I was a little kid," said Joe Britt-Simpson of Lindenwold, New Jersey.
Regardless of how or why, for these super fans "the play's the thing" to play again, and again, and again.
