The Vivian Beaumont Theater’s seats were empty Monday during Lincoln Center Theater 20th anniversary celebration.

The 600 guests spent the night onstage, dining with playwrights (Alfred Uhry, Terrence McNally), actors (Sam Waterston), and philanthropists.

One corner of the space was reserved for knockout “reprise” performances of Lincoln Center Theater hits, featuring Betty Buckley, Barbara Cook, Audra McDonald, and others. The event raised more than $600,000.

All told, Lincoln Center Theater productions have earned 36 Tony Awards. It all began in 1985 with a revival of John Guare’s “The House of Blue Leaves,” which moved to the Vivian Beaumont Theater after a sold-out run at the 299-seat Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. Ultimately, the show played at the Plymouth and won four Tony Awards.

Under the leadership of executive producer Bernard Gersten, current artistic director Andre Bishop, and past artistic director Gregory Mosher, the theater has a long and familiar list of hits: “Contact,” “Carousel,” “Acadia,” “Q.E.D.” (with Alan Alda), “Six Degrees of Separation” (with Stockard Channing), “The Heiress” (with Cherry Jones), and “Henry IV” (with Kevin Kline), to name a few.

The hottest ticket may have been for “Waiting for Godot” with Steve Martin. During its run, tickets were distributed by lottery.

“It was really brutal. It wasn’t funny to those who didn’t get tickets and there are still people who walk up to me and say, ‘I haven’t forgiven you yet,'” Mr. Gersten said.

It hasn’t always been sunny weather. “The thing about LCT that’s interesting is that it’s had such a checkered history,” Mr. Gersten said. “The first 20 years saw four separate management teams – the theater seemed untamable.

” Mr. Gersten makes it work by balancing expenses with earned and contributed income. He also pulled together $27 million for improvements to the two theaters. Meanwhile, the theater has maintained a $35 average ticket price for its 40,000 members. In the next few years, the theater will get a new glass facade, part of the 65th Street redevelopment for all of Lincoln Center. “We’re also hoping to add a small workshop theater of 100 seats,” Mr. Gersten said.

On the horizon: two new musicals. “Dessa Rose,” which has its first performance next week, and “The Light in the Piazza,” which began rehearsals yesterday.

“As an arts man: this is a labor of love,” Mr. Gersten said, adding, “I chuckle every day and I breathe a sigh of relief every day.”

The featured patrons of the event were Susan and Donald Newhouse. Mrs. Newhouse is on the Lincoln Center Theater’s board; Mr. Newhouse runs the newspaper arm of his family’s publishing empire. Their family was out in full force: Susan and Donald’s children, Kathy and Michael, were at one table, while Donald’s brother, S.I. Newhouse Jr., had his own table full of Conde Nast editors.

In public remarks at the event, Mr. Gersten paid tribute to the Newhouses’ loyalty to the theater, which he traced back to Donald and S.I. Newhouse’s parents, Samuel and Mitzi Newhouse. Mr. Gersten recalled Mitzi’s first visit to the theater that would bear her name. It was the early 1970s, and she pulled into the driveway in a “rather large white, tail-finned chauffeured Cadillac,” with vanity plate reading “M.E.N.”

There she found a “Mitzi Newhouse Theater” sign at the theater’s entrance – “a plywood replica of the big bronze Beaumont Theater sign, with cutout letters cunningly painted to look like the real thing,” Mr. Gersten said.

“With a sweeping glance she glommed the scene, stopping for only a moment to take note of the plywood sign, and without a pause announced: ‘It’s Mitzi E.Newhouse!'” The ‘E’ stood for Epstein, Mitzi Newhouse’s maiden name.