The Club

Our Club traces its origin to December 1874, when a group of actors and friends met for a post-theater dinner at Delmonico’s, then located on New York’s Union Square. Not wanting the night’s fellowship to end, the diners agreed to meet regularly and declared themselves a club, The Lambs—adopting the name of a similar dining club that had been active in London, England, a few years earlier, named for the essayist Charles Lamb and his sister, Mary Lamb.

One of the diners that first night at Delmonico’s was actor Henry James Montague, a past Shepherd, or president, of the London Lambs, and he became the founding Shepherd of our Club. The Lambs grew quickly, and by our 25th anniversary we had 500 members.

The Lambs today is a vibrant community that carries on the traditions established 150 years ago. Our members work on stage, film, and television, in addition to fields in the arts, business, and media, and we are proud of our past members who helped create some of the most important organizations in the industry today: Actors Equity, the Actors Fund (today the Entertainment Community Fund), ASCAP, SAG-AFTRA, and the Actors Home.

We are a social club, and we are socially conscious, with the nonprofit Lambs Foundation supporting needy actors and the acting community for more than 100 years. The Lambs stopped gender discrimination in the 1970s, when Cornelia Otis Skinner was elected the first female Lamb. Other social and private clubs in New York at the time fought against women members, but The Lambs welcomed the change, and today our Club membership is nearly 50-50, men and women.

We provide a Clubhouse for members and guests to gather, for nearly 50 years located on a private floor at 3 West 51st Street. The Lambs has called many places home since 1874—both Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street and the Lambs Club restaurant on West 44th Street were our clubhouses at one time and still retain some of our memorabilia left behind when we moved on. Our modern Clubhouse has views of Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and we offer member access to three Steinway pianos (Charles H. Steinway was a Lamb, naturally), rehearsal rooms, a restaurant and bar, and a cozy environment in the company of a spectacular art collection.

The Lambs is famous for Club events going back to the 1880s, including “Gambol” shows with Lambs such as W.C. Fields and Victor Herbert. Today we host a monthly Lambs Frolic, a cocktail party with music and conversation; biweekly Low Jinks, a cabaret style night of singing, drinks, and dinner in our pub; and frequent author talks, staged readings, plays, shows, and illustrated lectures.

Members of The Lambs today enjoy ongoing events in the Clubhouse tied to our show business pedigree. Lambs work on original songs at our Songwriters Salon, develop stage shows and playwriting skills at Playwright Nights, and present works in progress to the Club.

The Lambs is governed by the Lambs Council, led by the president (Shepherd) and vice-president (Boy). All our board members are volunteers; there are no paid positions at the Club. We run the business affairs ourselves to keep costs down and rely on the skills of members for everything from producing shows to producing websites. We are one of the rare social clubs that conducts one-on-one personal interviews with prospective members and requires two Lambs as sponsors.

The Lambs has one of the most affordable membership plans in New York, with a low initiation fee and low annual dues. Unlike other clubs, The Lambs has no “minimum spend” on food and beverages, no assessments, and no mortgage. Our Club is planning our sesquicentennial in 2024, and we are growing in membership in wonderful ways.

The great dancer and actor Fred Astaire was elected to The Lambs in 1922 and years later recalled, “When I was made a Lamb, I felt as if I had been knighted.” All of us today feel the same way.

If you are interested in membership in The Lambs, visit this page.