Funny thing is, I think LCT's subscribers are even older, if that's possible.
MTC does have gay & lesbian, singles and student memberships which involve cocktail parties and get togethers. I used to do the Sunday night gay & lesbian play and cocktail nights for a few seasons back about 5-8 years ago, but..... how to put this kindly ....... I just wasn't interested in talking to 99% of the people I met at those mixers and after a while ended up hanging out with the staff running the party (a couple of the people who worked in Subscriber Services were friends of mine), who were more typically more fun and interesting and generally closer to my age than most of the subscribers who were there, or else I brought along my own friends to go to the parties with me. I also got to know several of the actors from shows MTC was producing (the casts were always invited for the free wine and food), some of whom are still friends to this day (man, did I get a lot of juicy behind-the scenes gossip about people involved in those shows after the actors had had a bit too much of that free wine). All in all the parties were fun, but I don't think I met a single fellow subscriber in all the years I did that series.
The unfortunate fact is that that the vast majority of the kind of people who are willing and able to buy a full season subscription to MTC or Roundabout are going to be over 50, if not over 60 or 70 or even 80 years old (same with LCT, although in that case the membership only costs $50, but new memberships have been closed for years and will constinue to be until more of the subscriber base dies off -- there are too damn many members for the number of seats available). My friends who worked at MTC used to walk me around the parties introducing me to their co-workers and the actors from the shows by saying "Hey, I'd like you to meet our youngest subscriber!" They said it as a joke, but one glance around the room and it was clear that it was close to the truth. In fact one friend who worked there told me that I was approximately half the average subscriber age. He also said that even the student subscriptions (which were $150+ cheaper than the regular subscriptions) mostly went NOT to 18-30 year olds but to little old ladies who had taken one class at the Learning Annex or some other half-assed school and had a student ID because of it (and yes, at the time ANY student ID counted).
Still, I think few people under 30 (or even 40) buy memberships to theatres for $150 or whatever it is -- either because they don't have that much on hand at any time or don't plan ahead like that or think a year into the future like that. I think most people start thinking like that when they're a bit older and their life is a bit more settled with a more regular and predicatable schedule. I know that I didn't do many memberships when I was in my 20s because I was still going out nightly with my friends to bars and clubs and parties every other night so trying to plan anything more than a week in advance as impossible (which is not to say I didn't go to a lot of theatre, but that I generally did it on short notice -- lots of spur of the moment runs up to box offices with friends to see something that night or the night after).
I've subscribed at various times to LCT, MTC, Roundabout, The Public, Second Stage, NY Theatre Workshop, BAM, The Vineyard, The Atlantic, Signature, Playwrights and on any given night at every one of them more than half the audience is over 50 (if not 60, 70 etc...). It's unavoidable. Now, I think that The Public seems to draw a slightly younger (and much more ethnically diverse) crowd than most because of the kind of shows they tend to program year in year out (more playwrights of color, women playwrights and more daring works than most other theaters). Signature's August Wilson season last year also drew a very diverse audience (and will probably get a slightly younger crowd this year with its Charles Mee season). NY Theatre Workshop also is more daring programming-wise which tends to bring in a younger, hipper crowd. Same with The Vineyard (though their programming has been pretty crappy as of late).
But at the old established mainstream not-for-profits like Roundabout, MTC and LCT, which are generally less risk-taking and daring in their programming, an average audience age of 60-70 is pretty much unavoidable, no matter how many cocktail parties they throw or youth memberships they offer.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
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"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 10/27/07 at 03:30 PM
