Mel Brooks is charging a whopping $450 for the best seats at Young Frankenstein, his new Broadway musical. Wicked and Jersey Boys are sold out for months. Even Grease, a poorly reviewed production, is playing to full capacity.

Demand for shows on the Great White Way is so strong right now that Telecharge launched a Web site this past weekend to auction off seats to the highest bidders.

"More people saw a Broadway show in the past month than in any previous August in history," says Nancy Coyne, chief executive of Serino Coyne Inc., an ad agency that promotes the theater industry. "There are more hits in more houses attracting more people who are paying more to see them than ever before."

So how can the average New Yorker find a ticket these days without breaking the bank or standing in line at the TKTS booth for three hours? Here are a few tips for snagging seats to the hottest shows in town.

1. Buy before the buzz

Many shows, even those with stars, fly under the radar screen until reviews come out. It's hard to believe now, but Jersey Boys had plenty of available seats before it received a number of strong reviews and word-of-mouth began to spread. Ditto for The Pajama Game a few years ago: Even with Harry Connick Jr. starring, the musical only became the hit of the spring season after a glowing review in The New York Times.

This fall two major Hollywood celebrities are making their Broadway debuts and both of their shows are far from sold out. Tickets for Pygmalion with Claire Danes went on sale in August, and there are still great seats left for the play's entire run. Cyrano de Bergerac--with two heavy hitters, Jennifer Garner and Kevin Kline--begins previews on Oct. 12, and still has availability.

2. Take chances at the box office

Intrepid theatergoers can get lucky even for wildly popular productions like Wicked if they just show up. Producers generally hold up to 20 tickets a show for the press, special guests or other emissaries. By 6 pm, those seats are handed over to the box office for sale if they aren't used. Cancellations are resold then, too.

Disney Theatrical Productions releases its premium-priced tickets that didn't sell on the day of the show and offers them online at regular price. "There is a bit of a perception that a show is completely sold out, but not necessarily," says David Schrader, managing director of Disney.

3. Go to the best Web sites

A number of discount-ticket sites have emerged online in the past few years.

One, BroadwayBox.com, consistently wins raves from insiders. The site acts as a kind of clearinghouse, posting all reduced-price offers, including those from its competitors. Consumers forward discount codes to the site that they've received or found elsewhere. Every week, BroadwayBox e-mails a newsletter to members listing the best deals.

BroadwayBox also lists tickets to "sold out" shows for sale by brokers. Unlike other sites, however, it lists the exact seat location and the face value of the ticket. Prices aren't as high as one would think, either: A recent search found a pair for Wicked, center orchestra, on a Tuesday night for $152 each.

Other noteworthy sites include Playbill.com, which e-mails special offers to members every day, and TheaterMania.com.

4. Put together a group

Group sales box office sells tickets to groups with as few as 15 people. Hits like Jersey Boys often release blocks of tickets to the group sales agents before the general public.

One caveat is that you need to plan far in advance: Jersey Boys is currently booking groups for next fall.

5. Go to a show right now Ticket sales on Broadway plummeted 20% the week after Labor Day. In fact, September and October are two of the slowest months of the year for theater. The tourists are gone, and people are busy going back to school and work. Many previously sold-out shows suddenly have availability, and some even offer discounts.

Mary Poppins and Spamalot didn't offer discounts all summer, but both have recently appeared on BroadwayBox.com. Mary Poppins is offering $85 seats from now until Nov. 18 every day except Saturday.

…."Discount codes- which can be used when purchasing tickets through Ticketmaster – can be found at BroadwayBox.com. This useful site provides links and phone numbers that will help you purchase Broadway and Off Broadway tickets for up to 50 percent off."

NEW YORK -- While holiday shoppers rush around the city, genuine bargains are wasting away right in the middle of Times Square: Plenty of Broadway shows are willing to sell seats at discount prices to those who take the trouble to ask.

Whether they're bouncing back from last month's stagehands' strike or getting ready to weather the post-holiday blues, most Broadway attractions have tickets available for considerably less than the going price of $100-$110. The deals will become even more generous after the holidays.

Cut-rate tickets to many shows began to appear in the days following the strike's settlement on Nov. 28, as enticements to draw crowds back to the theater. All seats for the first performance of " Chicago" went for $26.50. "The Color Purple" re-priced its entire mezzanine section to $26.50 through Dec. 7. Since "Rent" reopened, a $110 seat sells for $65 for nearly every show, through Sunday.

"The strike was a ditch in the road, and we're getting over it," said " Chicago" producer Barry Weissler, whose long-running musical offers many $111.50 seats for $66.50. "The more you discount, the less is in your coffers, but it's endemic to discounts that you'll get more people to come."

Four well-reviewed productions, which bowed in the week following the 19-day strike, are still trying to regain box office traction and are playing to half-full houses. Top ticket prices for "August: Osage County," "The Farnsworth Invention," "The Seafarer" and "Is He Dead?" have been marked down by as much as one-third for certain performances. Such offers are made through various Internet discount services, like BroadwayBox.com and BroadwayWorld.com. (Only a few hits, like "Jersey Boys" and "Young Frankenstein," can command top dollar.)

Producer Jeffrey Richards has even developed a subscription deal with his associate impresarios for a trio of new plays. Richards is the lead producer for "August: Osage County"; a revival of "The Homecoming," which opened Sunday; and a David Mamet comedy, "November," which starts previews on Thursday.

Rather than paying $99.50 for orchestra or front mezzanine locations for those productions, play-goers can purchase prime seats to all three for $199 -- in effect, buying two shows, but getting the third for next to nothing. During the offer's first week, 200 subscriptions were sold, which the producer called "genuinely responsive."

"Theater seats are like airline tickets," Richards observed. "Once a plane takes off, it's gone. Once a show starts, every seat you didn't sell is lost. So we are trying to find different ways to maximize what we have." ....

What you'll find in this story: tips for finding tickets to a Broadway show, New York entertainment, secrets for securing Broadway tickets, tips for seeing a Broadway play, where to find tickets

Theater prices have gone sky-high--$100 for a musical is now the norm. But this is New York, and there's nothing New Yorkers hate more than paying retail. The truth is, Broadway has become a lot like the airline industry: If you know what you're doing, you can spend a fraction of what the person next to you did.

Before you leave

Check out Theatermania.com and Playbill.com, the most reliable sites for discounted tickets and up-to-date theater news. Both require you to register, but doing so is free. Circumstances vary from show to show, but tickets can usually be bought from a week to three months in advance for up to 50 percent off (plus fees from the ticket agency, such as Ticketmaster or Telecharge). Don't expect the hottest shows to be discounted, but plenty of big-name productions, including The Phantom of the Opera, The Glass Menagerie, and The Producers, were available at less-than-full price at press time. Broadwaybox.com and The Frugal TheaterGoer's Guide to Discount Tickets (home.nyc.rr.com/frugaltheatergoe ) are useful for finding discounts when others fail to offer the show of your choice.....