Save a Buck: A Seat for Free

Photo by Roland Schlager/APA/Cornis

If you love the arts, you can support them—and enjoy a show or concert without charge. Many nonprofit and historic theaters from New York to San Francisco depend on volunteers to usher at events. In return, volunteers may get free tickets or, more typically, the chance at an open seat.

Here are a few examples: At Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vt., 375 volunteers work in concessions or as ushers—they’re asked to commit for a year. The University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Mich., gives tickets to those who hang posters for two hours. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., uses volunteers not as ushers but as tour leaders or attendants in the "donor lounges." In return, they receive free tickets to 10 events a year and discounts on otherstickets and at the gift shop. The Stanley Theater in Utica, N.Y., has more than 200 volunteers, many of them 50 and older, who usher, take tickets, perform front-of-house duties, raise funds and even do their own show every year —a murder mystery.

To get started, check theater websites for details or speak to a volunteer director or front-of-house coordinator. Websites including such as VolunteerMatch and OneBrick list volunteer theater opportunities. And don’t forget your comfortable shoes. You could end up standing.