UPDATE: A WTOP ticket buying test proved a much smoother online purchasing process this time around. We were placed in an “online waiting room” at 10 a.m., moved from No. 10,744 in the queue at 10:13 a.m. to No. 1,191 by 11:50 a.m. and got through at 12:01 p.m.
Did you throw away your shot and miss the deadline for “Hamilton” tickets last time?
Were ticket prices too steep to afford seeing the “$10 founding father” on Broadway? Now is your chance for redemption.
“Hamilton” tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Monday as the national tour returns to the Kennedy Center from June 16 to Sept. 20.
You can order tickets on the Kennedy Center website, but you must first create an account.
When you click to buy tickets, you will be automatically placed in the online waiting room. All patrons in the waiting room by 10 a.m. will receive a random place in the queue. There is no advantage to entering at 3 a.m. because you will be randomly assigned at 10 a.m.
Once you receive your queue number, you will remain in that place as you near the front of the line. Patrons who log in after 10 a.m. will be placed in order at the back of the line.
Don’t set it and forget it; keep an eye on your place in line. Once you reach the front of the line, you will have 10 minutes to add your tickets to your cart. You will then have another 10 minutes to check out. You will only be allowed to make one transaction, so please add all tickets to your cart before entering your payment information and checking out.
If you are successful in purchasing, you will have the option to either have your tickets mailed or to pick them up at the box office. You won’t be allowed to receive your tickets by email or to print them at home.
Tickets will be available 30 to 45 days after purchase.
Ticket prices range from $79 to $550 with a maximum limit of eight tickets per household.
What if you encounter error messages saying that seats are not available? The Kennedy Center suggests logging out and logging back into your account, then returning to the “Hamilton” event page to start the seat selection process over again.
If you have further questions, you can reach out on Twitter @KenCen. Calling the phone number isn’t your best bet, as you might be on hold for a while.
Eager theatergoers have a right to be anxious.
When tickets were sold for the first national tour in 2018, the Kennedy Center box-office line stretched outside and around the Watergate side of the building five times over.
Online experiences varied. WTOP staffers who logged onto the Kennedy Center website saw their place in line range from 6,400 to 18,000 to 65,000. One staffer received his tickets within five minutes. Another received tickets after four hours.
What’s all the fuss about?
The hip-hop musical about the life and death of founding father Alexander Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, making history cool for a new generation.
Based on Ron Chernow’s 2005 biography, the musical follows Hamilton as he fights in the American Revolution, pens the Federalist Papers to gain support for the U.S. Constitution, serves as the first treasury secretary, then loses his life in a duel with rival Aaron Burr.
For such an impactful life, it was a story that surprisingly hadn’t been told, according to director Thomas Kail, who grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and went to school in D.C.
“I went to Sidwell Friends,” Kail told WTOP in 2016. “Every day, you go by these monuments, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Lincoln. I always wanted to make history feel relevant.”
He’ll never forget when creator Lin-Manuel Miranda told him about his idea for the musical in a “non-sober G-Chat from Mexico.”
“Aug. 1, 2009, he sent me a G-Chat: ‘Hey, I’m reading this biography,” Kail said. “He told me how this book really sparked for him and that he wanted to meet the writer and that he had an idea to write a song.”
Miranda first tested his song in a White House poetry jam turned viral video in 2009.
“What happened that night is what happened in real life,” Miranda told WTOP in 2016. “They laugh because it’s a crazy idea, then they get sucked into the story.”
Before long, “Hamilton” was the hottest ticket on Broadway at over $1,000 a pop.
“You don’t mess with people on their ‘Hamilton’ tickets,” star Leslie Odom Jr. told WTOP in 2017, saying he almost witnessed a fight between Shonda Rhimes and Art Garfunkel for blocking the view of the stage after paying such a high price.
After its 11 Tony wins, the Kennedy Center honored Miranda, Kail, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and music director Alex Lacamoire at the 2018 Kennedy Center Honors.
Usually, Kennedy Center Honors are reserved for cultural legends in the later stages of their careers, but “Hamilton” was so groundbreaking that the relatively young artists were honored as “trailblazing creators of a transformative work that defies category.”
A movie version starring the original Broadway cast is set for Oct. 15, 2021.
