Buyers lining up for 'Young Frankenstein' tickets

NEW YORK — It was a sight you don't see too often in this age of telephone and Internet sales: a line at a Broadway theater box office, stretching almost halfway down 42nd Street from the Hilton Theatre past the Hello Kitty store.

By midmorning Monday, an estimated 150-200 people were waiting patiently to purchase tickets for "Young Frankenstein," the Mel Brooks musical, whose box office at the Hilton opened at 10 a.m.

"How could it (the show) not be great?" asked Beth Ratzer, who joined the queue after 10 a.m., "although the ticket price is rude."

Ratzer, a resident of Queens, was referring to the $450 "premier" price for certain prime seats for the show, which begins preview performances Oct. 11 and opens Nov. 8.

But what had lured Ratzer was an ad promising the sale of a limited number of good "center section" seats for $120 each — plus the $1.50 theater restoration charge.

Ticket buyers were limited to eight tickets. And some were there to sign up for a $25-ticket lottery (for front-row seats), to be held later Monday, for most of the show's first two weeks of performances.

The producers have been reticent about revealing its box-office grosses. They will not publicly report its weekly Broadway grosses and didn't for the show's recently completed Seattle tryout.

For theatergoer Tammi Cooper of Voorhees, N.J., who got up at 5 a.m. to get to Manhattan by 8 a.m., the morning was a success. More than three hours after she got in line, Cooper was clutching three fourth-row center tickets for the Saturday matinee of Oct. 13 — the day after her birthday. "Now I'm going shopping," she said.