Just had an enlightening 3/4 hour conversation with the Malthouse's Michael Kantor about the first half of his 2008 program, which frustratingly is under embargo for a few more days, so I can't write about it here just yet, damn it.
Something I can discuss, though - and I hasten to add that it's something I heard from a completely different source, several days ago, not from Michael - is a rumour concerning subscriptions for the MTC's 2008 season.
It seems that the hardcore subscriber base at the Melbourne Theatre Company are so keen to avoid purchasing tickets to see Holding The Man, based on Tim Connigrave's heartwrending memoir about gay love and loss in the early years of the AIDS crisis; that rather than buy the full 11 play subscription package for the 2008 season, many of them are buying a 9-play subscription and purchasing an additional ticket for a tenth play, which actually costs them more than the 11-play subscription.
If this is true, it's rather astonishing, and certainly says volumes about the conservative mindset of the traditional audience that poor Simon Phillips is lumbered with.
Can any of my fellow theatre bloggers shed light on this rumour; or anyone from the MTC, please? (I know some of you read this blog from time to time!)
3 comments:
While it is quite believable that the MTC subscriber base wouldn't be flocking to "Holding the Man", I'm a little suspicious of the specific rumour since my understanding is that single tickets for a play cn't be purchased until 5 or 6 weeks prior to the opening of the play and so single tickets can't be purchased for any play right now. At least that is what I was told when I inquired about purchasing single tickets for something.
I think it might be good that the mtc subscribers aren't going for it. i saw it at belvoir street a few weeks ago, and the old belvoir street subscribers didn't make for the best crowd, even though the performance was full. the first time i saw it i saw it at the opera house (in another packed house), and it was just amazing there - maybe because everyone who was there completely wanted to be there (no subscribers). so maybe fewer subscribers means more room for everyone else??
if it's consistently filled theatres in sydney for what i guess is a couple of hundred performances by now, then surely five weeks in melbourne will find an enthusiastic audience, even without subscribers? it's a pretty phenomenal show, after all.
While I am not a subscriber I have friends who are. We have (through them) purchased many more tickets just to see Holding the Man. I think it will do quite well on it's own.
As for subscribers doing 9 and purchasing the extra one just to miss this seems a bit odd to me but who cares anyway. Frees up some seats for my friends who would like to see it.
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