Phyre Hawkins, Mark Evans, Christopher John O'Neill in The Book of Mormon.Joan Marcus
Tickets for The Book of Mormon's six-week stop in Toronto may be officially sold out, but there's no need for those without tickets to shout "Hasa diga eebowai!" (That's the profane curse Ugandan villagers teach Elder Price and Elder Cunningham in the hit musical by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.)
On Tuesday, Mirvish Productions released information about a ticket lottery for the Toronto tour dates. Up to 24 seats will be available for each performance for just $25, cash only.
Two and a half hours before each performance, the box office at the Princess of Wales Theatre will accept entries to the lottery for these tickets. Then, two hours before curtain, the names of the winners will be drawn. Only one entry is permitted per person – and a maximum of two tickets may be requested by each entrant.
Mirvish Productions is also warning potential patrons not to purchase tickets for The Book of Mormon being illegally resold on sites like Craigslist – where today, for instance, a user is offering two tickets to the first preview for $500.
In a message on mirvish.com. the theatre producers, who tried to limit scalping by restricting ticket sales to legal residents of Canada, warn there are fraudulent tickets out there on the Internet – and that they are "search[ing] the Web vigilantly" for real tickets being resold and cancelling them.
J. Kelly Nestruck