This Destination Spotlight was paid for by a promotional fee from a Home & Away Publishing advertiser.

Wouldn’t it be cool if one of your friends was a show-biz insider?

Since theater professionals are offered tickets to practically everything, you could have your pick of the attractions on the Great White Way. And since the insider is your friend, you could have those tickets for a song.

Meet Season of Savings, your new friend—the show-biz insider.

Started in 2002, Season of Savings is a guide to Broadway and Off-Broadway, complete with coupons for up to 60 percent off admission for select shows. The guide is published twice a year and also contains information on high-profile attractions in and around Times Square and beyond.

More than 500,000 show tickets have been purchased through the Season of Savings Playbill, which is distributed to theatergoers through The New York Times, The Journal News, The Star-Ledger and The Record.  Those thousands of ticket seekers also can find more at www.SeasonofSavings.com.

What they’re looking for, of course, is the lowdown—and low prices—on established hits and the most exciting newcomers. Here are the goods on Broadway’s best that the newest edition of Season of Savings will gladly share:

Young And Restless

These aren’t your grandfather’s musicals. A bounty of critical raves and eight 2007 Tony Awards (including best musical) made Spring Awakening, a provocative musical about teenage passion, a must-see hit featuring Hunter Parrish from TV’s Weeds. Based on the movie comedy about a Beverly Hills cheerleader’s conquest of Harvard Law, Legally Blonde has become a bona fide Broadway success, drawing youthful fans to the Palace to welcome MTV reality show winner Bailey Hanks.

By any definition, the new kid on the block is 13, the coming-of-age musical with a score by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown that spotlights an all-teen cast and an all-teen band; its Broadway bow follows successful runs at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum and Connecticut’s Goodspeed Opera House. 

Even long-running hits haven’t lost their youthful appeal. Hairspray, winner of eight 2003 Tony Awards, is still rocking the Neil Simon Theatre and audiences back to 1962, and 2004’s best musical winner, Avenue Q, is as hilariously irreverent as ever with its fuzzy monsters, lustful puppets and Broadway’s only show-stopping production number about Internet porn.

Good Things Come in Big Packages

For some, only musicals with the biggest casts and most lavish productions will do, and the folks at Disney have mastered the form. Their latest offering, The Little Mermaid, is an eye-popper that takes its audience to a magic kingdom Under the Sea, where that Oscar-winning song becomes one of the show’s memorable production numbers. And Disney’s spit-spot perfect Mary Poppins, co-produced with Cameron Mackintosh, became last season’s highest-attended musical, thanks at least in part to its many moments of astonishing stage magic.

When Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein leapt from the big screen to Broadway, everything got bigger—from the Monster’s platform shoes to the belly laughs. Meanwhile, the Monty Python-inspired Spamalot successfully satirizes big Broadway spectaculars while being a big Broadway spectacular in its own right—a hilarious feat that clinched the 2005 Tony Award for best musical.

A monumental theme, a huge cast and a towering literary source distinguish A Tale of Two Cities as one of the biggest new musicals of the season. And the mother of all mega-musicals, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, continues to draw cheering crowds to the Majestic. The production is the longest-running show ever on Broadway and has played to more than 80 million people in 124 cities around the world.

“G” Is for “Gee, What a Great Revival”

It’s probably a coincidence, but some of the most popular musical revivals start with a “G”—like Gypsy, the classic backstage musical whose three stars took home Tonys this year. And Grease is still the word at the Brooks Atkinson, where American Idol winner Taylor Hicks is setting hearts aflutter as Teen Angel. You’ll notice there’s even a “G” in Chicago, the longest-running musical revival in Broadway history and the winner of six 1997 Tony Awards.

The Play’s the Thing

You never hear grumblings about the future of plays on Broadway anymore—too many big successes have laid that old gripe to rest. The Pulitzer Prize-winning, heartbreakingly funny August: Osage County counted best play among its five 2008 Tony wins; the dysfunctional family epic is a favorite of audiences and critic alike. For flat-out farce there’s Boeing-Boeing, the riotous swinging ’60s bachelor-pad comedy that winged its way to best revival of a play and best actor honors this year.

The acclaimed British import, The 39 Steps, reimagines Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller as a madcap slapstick adventure with four virtuoso performers playing more than 150 roles. And the Roundabout Theatre Company revives Robert Bolt’s powerful historical classic A Man for All Seasons with theater legend and three-time Tony winner Frank Langella as Sir Thomas More, the role that won Paul Scofield a Tony in 1962 and an Oscar in 1966.

Beyond Broadway
Season of Savings extends its reach to some of the best shows Off-Broadway, too. This season’s offerings include Altar Boyz, Fuerza Bruta, Gazillion Bubble Show, Irena’s Vow, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Oklahoma, Rock of Ages and Stomp.

The guide also contain information and discounts on popular attractions in the area: Big Apple Circus, Bodies: The Exhibition, Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk, Madame Tussauds, and The Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

For more information about Season of Savings, visit www.SeasonOfSavings.com/AAA.  For assistance in planning a Broadway-bound getaway, visit www.AAA.com/travel.