'Springsteen on Broadway' is happening: How to get tickets

As has long been rumored, Bruce Springsteen is headed to Broadway, to play an extended run as a solo act at the Walter Kerr Theatre in midtown Manhattan in the fall, it was announced Wednesday morning.

The Boss will do five shows a week for eight weeks, beginning in previews as they do on the Great White Way on Oct. 3, officially opening on Oct. 12 and closing on Nov. 26.

The Walter Kerr seats 960, making it, Springsteen said in a statement, "probably the smallest venue I've played in the last 40 years."

"I wanted to do some shows that were as personal and as intimate as possible. I chose Broadway for this project because it has the beautiful old theaters which seemed like the right setting for what I have in mind," Springsteen said.

"My show is just me, the guitar, the piano, and the words and music. Some of the show is spoken, some of it is sung. It loosely follows the arc of my life and my work. All of it together is in pursuit of my constant goal to provide an entertaining evening and to communicate something of value."

The "spoken" description might lend credence to the talk that these shows are a trial run for turning Springsteen's 2016 Born to Run memoir into a full-fledged Broadway show. And the alone-on-stage nature of the dates suggests Springsteen might be ready to release the new solo album that he's talked about being in the works in interviews over the last couple of years.

So how are you going to get tickets for an eight-week run that in total will accommodate fewer fans than saw him in one night of his two-show stand at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last September?

It's tricky. Tickets go on sale  at 10 a.m. Aug. 30. They're available only through Ticketmaster Verified Fan, which is billed as a "unique fan-first technology [that] levels the playing field to combat bots and get real tickets into the hands of fans who intend to go to the event."

First: Register to become a verified fan. It's a simple sign-up process. But that's not all: You have to be randomly selected to receive an offer code, which you'll find out via text hours before tickets go on sale. There is a limit of two tickets per person.

Registration starts today and closes Aug. 27. More is at brucespringsteen.net/broadway.

Don't get an offer code? Don't sweat it. Two members of the E Street Band will be in our area in the fall for tour dates.