I admit it, I haven’t read Joe Brancatelli’s columns in a couple of months, so I’m playing catchup. They really are indispensable (when they’re not a bit too cranky, natch).

Last week he offered a series of excellent useful web links, some of which were new to me. My favorite:

May I direct your attention to BroadwayBox.com? It doesn’t matter whether you care about the theater or whether you actually ever go to New York and see a play. If you’re a business traveler, BroadwayBox.com offers a dose of clarity. In case you don’t know it, the New York theater has inexplicably adopted the Big Six pricing model. That means the price of walk-up orchestra seats has surged past $100. But since almost no one wants to pay $100 a seat, theaters have resorted to an increasingly desperate series of gimmick prices. These “sale” prices–often 50 percent off the posted price at the box office–are regulated by special codes mailed to different segments of the theater-going customer base. But BroadwayBox.com gathers all the supposedly secret codes to all the Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and then posts them at the Web site.