Asking for What You Want — in Portuguese
An attempt to get into a sold-out show provides a lesson about making requests
I was ready to give up. The show had an 8 p.m. start time. It was 7:40 p.m.
My husband and I stood outside of the Theatro Municipal in downtown Rio de Janeiro, watching people arrive for a show of modern dance. This Monday night performance of “Sagração” by Deborah Colker’s dance company was the only show at the theater we could catch in late March.
It was a make-up performance on a Monday night. Rain cancelled an earlier performance of “Sagração". We expected that there would be tickets available. In our hometown of Washington, D.C., many people would reject an offer for a Monday night make-up performance. Mondays tend to be busy work days.
But cariocas, as the people of Rio de Janeiro are called, have a better sense of priorities than Washingtonians.
On Monday afternoon, I checked the box office for tickets. An employee of the theater very nicely told me that the show was still sold out. There had not been the rush of cancellations my husband and I hoped for.
We are traveling in Brazil and had only thought to look for tickets for a performance at the theater about a week ago. Our AirBnB is a few blocks from the Theatro Municipal. We have spent a lot of time looking at…
