Where to sit in a Broadway theatre

Broadway seating charts are drawn to sell tickets rather than to explain them, which is why the most expensive seat in the house is often not the best one and the section that costs least is sometimes the smartest buy. The geometry is simple once somebody says it out loud.

What are the seating sections called?

Three levels, from the bottom up: the orchestra at stage level, the mezzanine above it, and in the larger houses a balcony above that. Many mid-sized Broadway theatres have only the first two.

If you have booked in London, the orchestra is what you would call the stalls, and the mezzanine is roughly the dress circle. Some Broadway houses use the older names — loge, dress circle — for the mezzanine, but the level is the same.

A handful of productions reconfigure their theatre entirely and invent their own section names as a result. Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is the current example: the house is rebuilt in the round with table seating, and none of the conventional advice below applies to it. Always open the seating plan for the specific theatre.

Are orchestra seats actually the best?

Some of them. The orchestra is priced as a single premium block and it is not a single quality of seat.

The good part is the center, from roughly the sixth row to the thirteenth. Close enough to read a face, far enough back that you take in the whole stage at once, and level with the action rather than looking up at it. This is the part of the house that deserves its price.

The first two rows are too close for anything with choreography. You are looking upward at a steep angle, the performers’ feet are near your eyeline, and a wide stage will not fit in your field of view without turning your head. For an intimate two-hander they are wonderful. For The Lion King they are a mistake.

The far sides lose the opposite corner of the stage and flatten everything else.

The rear sits under the overhang, which is the next section.

What is the mezzanine overhang and when does it matter?

The mezzanine is a balcony, and it projects out over the back of the orchestra. Sit in the rear orchestra and there is a ceiling not far above your head, cutting off the top of the stage picture.

It matters enormously for some shows and not at all for others. Anything that uses height — flying, projections onto a back wall, a set with an upper level, a chandelier — loses part of itself. Wicked is the obvious case. A single-set play where everything happens at floor level loses essentially nothing.

The trap is that these seats are sold as orchestra seats at orchestra prices. If you are choosing between the rear orchestra and the front mezzanine at a similar price, take the front mezzanine almost every time.

So where is the best seat in the house?

For most Broadway shows: the center of the front mezzanine.

You are elevated, so the stage picture resolves as the director composed it. There is nothing in front of you but a rail. Choreography reads as pattern rather than as a crowd. And it is usually cheaper than the center orchestra, because the orchestra carries the prestige.

The exception is the intimate play, where the evening is carried by faces and what you want is proximity. For Oh, Mary! or anything else built around a performance rather than a spectacle, center orchestra earns its money.

What do partial view and obstructed view really mean?

That the seller has told you in advance that you will not see all of the stage, and has discounted the seat accordingly.

The obstruction is usually a support pillar, a safety rail, the overhang, or simply an extreme angle. How much you lose varies wildly between houses, because these are buildings from the 1910s and 1920s with structural columns standing exactly where a modern architect would not put them.

These are generally honest discounts rather than traps, and at a sold-out show they are often the only thing left. Check the theatre’s own seating plan before buying, and bear in mind that the same designation can mean a sliver of the wings at one house and a third of the stage at another.

Does the balcony ever make sense?

For spectacle, yes, and for a budget it is unbeatable — the balcony holds the cheapest seats in any Broadway house that has one. A large musical is designed to read from up there.

For a play, it is a long evening. The rake is steep, the distance is real, and faces become approximate. If the balcony is what the budget allows for a play, the cheaper mechanisms described in rush, lottery, and standing room may put you somewhere better for similar money — and the reason all of these tiers are priced as they are is covered in why Broadway tickets cost what they do.