Here’s what you need to know about ‘Hamilton’ coming to St. Louis

Q: I’ve heard that the Broadway musical “Hamilton” is coming to St. Louis, but I’m not good with computers so I haven’t been able to find anything more. Can you tell me if I heard correctly and, if so, when is it and how I can get tickets?

A: Oh, you heard correctly, and I suspect the fight for tickets to see the show next April at the Fabulous Fox may be talked about more around St. Louis than the legendary Burr-Hamilton duel in 1804.

It’s too bad you didn’t call me a couple of months ago when I could have given you a sure-fire way to land tickets for this blockbuster musical that turned Broadway on its ear in 2016 with its 16 Tony nominations and 11 wins, including best musical, book, score, actor, actress, choreography and costumes. As an enticement to sell more season tickets, the Fox allowed theater fans to pick “Hamilton” as part of a six-show package when those season tickets went on sale.

But that offer ended July 18, so now if you want a season ticket, you have to choose from among such chestnuts as “The Sound of Music,” “Chicago” and “Phantom of the Opera.” I can’t tell you when single tickets go on sale because the Fox says it’s still TBA — to be announced. I can’t even tell you how much they’ll cost, although I could suggest you might want to eat more ramen noodles for a while. When the show opened a sixth-month engagement in Chicago last September, premium seats ran $500-$600, although most were $65-$180.

So all I can say with certainty at the moment is the tour will offer 23 performances at the Fox from April 3 to April 22. Other than that, the best you can do is keep visiting the www.fabulousfox.com website and closely monitor local TV and radio stations because once they do go on sale, they’ll likely be gone in a flash. (Obviously, there will be no group sales or mail orders.) After that, you may have to mortgage the house to get a pair. Secondary market prices in the Windy City reached $10,000 each, according to the Chicago Tribune. Apparently former President Barack Obama was right on the mark when he joked that admiration for “Hamilton” was “the only thing Dick Cheney and I agree on.”

Today’s trivia

Why do we abbreviate pound as lb?

Answer to Friday’s trivia: In 1884, a funny thing happened at the Republican National Convention: Grand Old Party delegates in Chicago nominated two brothers for president — famed Union Army Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and John, one of his younger siblings. Neither was a threat to the eventual standard-bearer, James Blaine. On the first ballot, John, a senator from Ohio, received only 30 votes and was quickly out of the running. His more famous brother received only a handful of votes, but he didn’t care. In a statement that Lyndon Johnson may have borrowed from later, Sherman reportedly had said, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.” In the general election, Grover Cleveland nipped Blaine to win the first of his two nonconsecutive terms.

This story was originally published September 1, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Here’s what you need to know about ‘Hamilton’ coming to St. Louis."