Who is the Target Audience for...?

I've had several discussions with friends about recent musicals that end with "who is the audience for this?" When I dislike a show I'll know it isn't always targeting me... That led me to ask "what shows are targeting me?"

Looking a the new musicals of the past few seasons I see I tend to like:

Original scores. I want the songs to fit the story and characters I'm watching. Jukebox shows annoy me for this reason. If the character is singing a song to keep it out of the public domain (looking at you Holiday Inn) I tune out.

Stories about politics or ideas. You can have a romance in the B-plot (preferably tragic or unrequited) but if it's the A plot it won't hold my interest.

Source material's all over the place. I've enjoyed shows based on books, plays and historical events. I tend not to enjoy shows based on films or television shows as only a handful improve upon their source material. Biographies with original scores like Hamilton and Evita entertain me while biographies built around a singers back catalog (Jersey Boys, Beautiful) do not.

Narration is a pet peeve. I didn't care for the third person narration in Come From Away and The Great Comet.

A star is rarely my selling point. I've enjoyed interesting shows with understudies and yawned through weak star vehicles. I also prefer individualized ensemble members to a faceless chorus.

It's hard to say if there's a show I was the perfect target audience for. I'm not a teen but Dear Evan Hansen spoke to my personal high school experience and I loved it. I love Chita Rivera and horror but The Visit bored me.

I wanted to put the topic out to this group.
Are there shows you feel you are the target audience for?
Are there patterns that determine what shows you'll like or are you always surprised?

I like all sorts of shows, but when I saw The Band's Visit last week, I felt the entire time as though it was targeting me directly. I love quiet, pensive, thoughtful shows like that, and value things like aesthetics and mood over plot any day of the week.

The Scottsboro Boys is another show that was super appealing to me. I love that it used the form of a musical itself to make a comment on its thematic content, and I found it to be overall audacious, sweeping, and intellectual while still being ENTERTAINING. When I left the theater, I remember saying to my wife, "Why can't ALL shows be that complex and wonderful?" I hope I get another chance to see it some time.

The reviews for Escape to Margaritaville brought me back to this topic. Here's my rough attempt to parse the target audiences for this season's Broadway shows.

• Women under 20 - Frozen, Mean Girls
• Folks under 30 - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Spongebob Squarepants, Once on this Island
• Folks over 30 - The Iceman Cometh, Children of a Lesser God, Three Tall Women, Lobby Hero, The Bands Visit
• Gay men over 30 - The Boys in the Band, Angels in America
• Straight couples over 40 - Carousel, My Fair Lady, Donna Summer Musical
• Straight men over 40 - Escape to Margaritaville, Rocktopia(?)

Thus Margaritaville is aiming for an under-served audience and has as much of a shot as any other jukebox musical.
Agree with these groupings? Disagree?

After Eight said: "Indeed, one could say everyone was their target audience (save the assorted snobs, elitists,killjoys, sourpusses, and party-poops who can't abide anything that makes other people happy.)"

The parenthetical statement basically describes AfterEight when he is not the target audience for a show.

Frozen: Families with young children (under 7) or pre-teens who were young when the movie came out

Mean Girls: Women in their mid-20's to mid-30's (right age to be fans of movie when it came out), Women 40 and up (right age to be a fan of 30 Rock, early Tina Fey), teenagers (who are the right age to identify with the characters and also love memes and things from the 90's and 2000's they weren't old enough or sometimes alive for when they actually came out), gay men in similar age brackets

Harry Potter: Theoretically could hit all the demographics given how long the property has been around and the wide age range of all the fans. It might also catch some older theatergoers because it is a play and the characters are aged up. But then it might not. Time will tell who the real fan base is.

Three Tall Women: Unless there's a cadre of Ladybird or Alison Pill fans I'm guessing people over 50

Spongebob Squarepants: Families with young children (under 7), people in their mid-20's to mid-30's (right age to be fans of show when it came out)

Once On This Island: I agree with people under 30 (Based on anecdotal evidence, it seems a lot of people did this in school or saw a production of it. Also, it has a certain appealing "wokeness" while also being problematic.)

Escape to Margaritaville: Jimmy Buffet fans

The Band's Visit, My Fair Lady: I'm not sure how much small children would enjoy either but theoretically these could attract the widest audience. Without knowing if there's any particular direction for MFL, there's nothing about the casting, creative team, source material, etc. that targets any one particular group. Like almost all shows they will probably primarily draw an older, white audience but there's no reason they shouldn't draw a general audience. The whole 4 quadrant thing.

Summer: People in their late 50's and up, gay men who enjoy dance music, possibly confused women who fall for the marketing

Rocktopia: ???

There was a significant smell of weed when I walked by the people waiting to get into a saturday night showing of spongebob, if that says anything about their demographics.