Hamilton tickets are next to impossible to get before March 2018. But I was able to get tickets for the April 1 show on April 1.  How?  The cancellation line.

A cancellation line is a line that extremely dedicated Broadway fans stand on for many hours with the hopes of getting an unclaimed ticket into the show.

Although I was originally anti- Hamilton, my cousin made me listen to “One Last Time” on the train to a Rangers game against my wishes. I fell in love.  For four months, I learned every single song on the original cast recorded an album and eventually got tickets for June 20, 2017.

But I just couldn’t wait.  My sister and I made the decision to stand on the Hamilton cancellation line, despite freezing temperatures outside. The curtain was at 8:05 pm, but we arrived at 3:30. Luckily, we were the tenth and eleventh people in line.

During the four and a half hours, we bonded with a family from California, and the 10 other people online. We all took turns making Starbucks runs and sharing stories. The line of dressed up ticket holders got smaller and by 8:00, my sister and I were fourth and fifth on line, and we had begun to lose faith that we’d ever would get into the show.

At 8:03 they called in the family from California. Then, at 8:06, my sister and I entered the warm theatre and ran to our $40 standing room seats.  

Lin Manuel Miranda, the mastermind behind the musical, wrote the 47 songs in the show, and there are no spoken lines. He tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant who created the Treasury with nonstop hard work.

In the second song, Aaron Burr is introduced. He’s important because he is the man that Hamilton idolized and became friends with, until Hamilton wasn’t on his side during a presidential election. Burr was the man that eventually shot and killed Hamilton.

In the next song, we meet Elizabeth Schuyler, Hamilton’s wife. She sings several amazing songs throughout the show such as “Helpless” and “Burn”. The song “Helpless” describes Eliza’s happy feelings the first time she met him. In “Burn”, on the other hand, Eliza sings while she burns all of the love letters he’d written to her after she found out that her husband had an affair with a woman named Mariah Reynolds.

My favorite song was “Satisfied” because of the scenery. The song was sung during the wedding of Eliza and Hamilton. Center stage, there were two circular turntables, one inside the other, and at the beginning of the song, they spun opposite ways while the actors were singing about going back in time.

The show was beyond my highest expectations. The way they creatively captured the songs that I had listened to for months on repeat were even better live. The actors did an amazing job of telling the story of Alexander Hamilton with great dance moves and fantastic voices.

I’ve seen over 15 Broadway shows, and plan on seeing more, but Hamilton will always be my favorite. If you can somehow get you hands on a ticket, whether you purchase them when a new block for next year is released, enter the Hamilton lottery, or stand on the cancellation line, it’s worth waiting for.