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As the clock ticks closer to the 8 p.m. curtain time, the lobby more clearly resembles a house party — a chatty, mingling crowd, flashing colorful lights and flowing red wine.

Chastain’s performance begins before curtain time: She’s seated onstage, going round and round on the turntable, as people are finding their seats.

Then the Huskies went on an 11-0 run at the outset of the third quarter, and it was curtain time.

Options are most plentiful right after the booths open, but new tickets are released all day, even as curtain time nears, so going later can be lucky, too.

At the New Ohio Theater, in Greenwich Village, audience members crowded into the lobby waiting to see the madcap new play “My Onliness” are alerted to curtain time by the sudden blast of a conch shell and the arrival of a human with a unicorn head, who leads a procession into the house.