‘Hamilton’ for $10? A few get the call
Christy Bertolo’s tears dried quickly Friday.
While driving to work, the Upper Arlington resident had just listened for the first time to the end of the award-winning musical “Hamilton.” Not much of a history buff, Bertolo was surprised — and upset — to learn that the title character, in real life, was killed in a duel.
“I was sobbing on my way into the office,” Bertolo said, “and then my phone buzzed.”
Like thousands of others, Bertolo had been entering a daily lottery to win $10 tickets to see the national touring production of “Hamilton” during its three-week run at • To enter to win $10 tickets to “Hamilton” in Columbus, download the show’s app or visit hamiltonmusical.com/ lottery.
the Ohio Theatre.
Forty such tickets have been made available for each show, and the phone buzzing stemmed from a notification that she’d won two tickets to the Saturday night show.
The timing couldn’t have been better, Bertolo said, because she’d been thinking about buying two tickets to one of the two Sunday performances. She’d hoped to pay no more than $150 apiece but could find none cheaper than $168 each — “for the absolute top row in the balcony.”
Instead, on Saturday, she and her 10-year-old son, Augie, sat on the theater floor, five rows back from the stage. Two Hamiltons for $20 total. (A normal ticket for this Saturday evening’s show ranges from $187 to $399, plus fees).
“We couldn’t see the far back corner, but the fact that they (the actors) come to the edge of the stage and are singing right at you — I mean, we could see them spitting as they were singing — I’m not complaining about something that happened in the back corner,” Bertolo said.
All “Hamilton” shows nationwide feature a ticket lottery. Entries can be made two days in advance of each performance using the “Hamilton” app or via the lottery site. Winners are notified the day before the show.
An average of 16,000 entries have been received for each Columbus show, according to Lucky Seat, the company that operates the lottery. The Columbus run ends Feb. 17.
Bertolo and her husband, Jason, have three children — their daughters are 8 and 4 — but the Ohio State University administrator said taking Augie was an easy decision. The fourth-grader at Tremont Elementary enjoys theater and musicals, she said, noting that they saw “Mamma Mia” at the Ohio Theatre when he was 4 and the two had at times listened to the “Hamilton” download together.
“And he also had just finished learning about the Revolutionary War in school,” she said.
Both she and her son loved
the Lin-manuel Miranda show.
“It was really good,” Augie said. “I liked how it was history, and they made it more fun.”
And they still sobbed at times.
“We went through the emotional roller-coaster,” Bertolo said. “The singers were all amazing. It was unbelievable.”