Tampa's Straz Center offers cheap "Mormon" tickets

   Almost everyone is eager to see “The Book of Mormon,” which is coming to the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa this week. But a lot of people don't want to shell out $69, which is how much the least-expensive regular tickets are, before the service charge.
   But if you're lucky you can get tickets for $25 apiece.
    The Straz Center will host a lottery for a limited number of ultra-cheap tickets before each performance. Starting two and half hours before each performance, you can show up

A scene from "The Book of Mormon"

at the Straz and tell them you want to be part of the lottery. They'll draw names two hours before curtain and each winner can get one or two tickets for $25 per.
   It's not all cheap tickets in the lottery. The seats are scattered around the house, so you could end up getting a few hundred dollars worth of tickets for $50. You have to be there at the time of the drawing to win, and you have to pay cash for the tickets.
   “The Book of Mormon” runs Nov. 12-24. Curtain is at 7:30 Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The Straz Center is at 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa. For more information, call 813-229-7827 or go to www.strazcenter.org.