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Hello fellow kids! Broadway is about to get a whole lot more accessible for us. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) announced a new program offering thousands of free and low-cost tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows through summer and into the fall.
The biggest prize is a lottery for more than 2,000 free tickets to seven Broadway shows: Buena Vista Social Club, In the Heights at New York City Center, School Girls Or, The African Mean Girls Play, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, The Lost Boys, The Great Gatsby and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). Lottery winners can claim up to two tickets.
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There is a deadline, though: The lottery is open through 10am on Monday, August 17, so eligible students will want to get their names in sooner rather than later. Students can enter at the city's Broadway lottery website.
And even if Lady Luck doesn't come through with those free Broadway seats, entering the lottery comes with another pretty great consolation prize. Every student who enters automatically receives a free two-month TDF membership, which provides access to discounted tickets to Broadway, Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway shows, as well as music, museums and dance. Those discounted tickets typically cost between $20 and $40.
The membership also opens the door to some of the city's biggest cultural institutions. Participating organizations include the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, MoMA PS1, the New York Botanical Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Ballet and the Public Theater, among many others.
Any New York City student in grades 9 through 12 is eligible for the free two-month membership and Broadway ticket giveaway. The memberships will remain available through September 13, even after the Broadway lottery closes.
The program is part of the Mamdani administration's broader push to connect young New Yorkers with free and low-cost cultural programming. The city says the initiative builds on its Summer in N.Y.C. program, which connects young people with affordable activities across the five boroughs.
In other words: if you're a high schooler in NYC, Broadway just got a lot cheaper—if not completely free!