Yes, But At What Cost?

It’s “free” in the sense that the tickets do not cost actual money. Your time, patience and sanity are another matter:

Friday night’s performance of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” began about 8 p.m. at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. David Suker showed up about 8:45 p.m. He was not late. He was early.

Mr. Suker, 38, was the first person in line for tickets to the next night’s performance. He had a long wait ahead of him — some 16 hours before the theater would hand out the free tickets — but he had his blue air mattress and its battery-powered pump, a bottle of seltzer, a sleeping bag, a lantern and his Army training.

. . .

The lines have become a Shakespeare in the Park tradition and the Delacorte’s unofficial second stage, as lively, improvised and quietly dramatic as the plays for which they form. For “Mother Courage,” the lines are two-act plays. The first line starts in the evening on the cobblestone sidewalk of Central Park West at the edge of the park, at 81st Street. The park closes between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., and when it reopens, people in the first line reassemble outside the theater’s box office.

Time is indeed money in New York City: people were selling tickets to last night’s show on craigslist.com for $45 each and up to $150 for a pair. One ticket holder wrote, “$100 for my time on line or best reasonable offer.” But all of those interviewed said they were waiting for hours only to see the play or to get tickets for friends.