There is perhaps nothing more magical than seeing a Broadway play. The warm theater lights and the sounds of stringed instruments warming up seem to promise something great to come. A certain kind of comradery can be found only in a theatre. Conversations flow freely with strangers who become fast friends by token of assigned seat numbers.
The history of the theatre surrounds you, filling your mind with questions. Who sat in these seats before me? What plays were staged here before I was even born? Every single thing about a Broadway show is magical to me — except for the fact that Broadway is in New York, and I am in Florida.
This lack of proximity entices many theatre lovers into watching bootleg versions online. These bootleg videos are available on YouTube, the handiwork of theatre attendees who shoot video on their phones during a performance. The quality is terrible. Capturing the videos makes the actors on stage upset, both because it’s distracting and because (most importantly) such recordings are illegal. When someone takes a bootleg and puts it online, it’s stealing someone else’s art. On the other hand, for a lot of people, this is the only way theater can be accessible to them. It’s tempting to think of bootlegs as a workaround, getting around the classist system that prevents them from seeing a Broadway show to begin with. Discourse on the value and/or immorality of bootlegs can be tricky, because both sides have valid points. The issue: how do we make theater more accessible? I see one solution in my living room: the small screen.
Streaming and broadcast television have opened up new avenues for consuming theater. Over the years, content creators have explored how television and theater can work together to create an intimate and accessible theater experience off-off-off Broadway, right in your own home. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have purchased professional recordings of Broadway shows; Oh, Hello!, What the Constitution Means to Me, and Hamilton were all legally, professionally recorded then debuted on popular streaming services, to be viewed easily by even a hesitant Broadway enthusiast.
Unlike movie adaptations of a show, like Little Shop of Horrors or Rent, these filmed performances capture a communal experience. Arguably, the audience is what makes theater, well, theater. It sounds cliché, but it is true: the audience is just as much a part of the show as the actors or the set. When a Broadway show’s matinee performance is filmed and put on television, at-home viewers can feel like they are just as much a part of the audience as people in the theater. It is the perfect medium for a Broadway show precisely because of how personal television is. It’s small, viewed in the comfort of your own home; and, as with news shows and reality television, people can form “personal relationships” with celebrities in this setting.
There are 120.6 million home televisions in America. With the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down cinemas and theaters alike, broadcast television and streaming have become the biggest forms of content consumption. As theaters scrambled to make money during the shutdown, television and streaming offered them a solution to their revenue problem, also resolving the issue many theater lovers have with the price of tickets. Attention was drawn to local and Broadway theaters alike as libraries of professionally recorded shows were made available, theatre companies performed shows on ZOOM, and streaming services picked up shows that previously planned to debut on Broadway. And in 2020, it was announced that Diana: A New Musical would make its streaming debut on Netflix two months before it made its Broadway debut.
It’s not just those who can’t afford a ticket to live theatre who benefit from this forced transition to streaming theater. People with medical conditions that prevent them from enjoying plays in a theater can benefit from the customizability and accessibility that television offers, while also highlighting the ways in which theater is not an accessible art form for everyone. The renewed attention theater has received during COVID has in many ways also worked to destigmatize it, making it not just a pastime for the ultra-wealthy but also a retreat for the average person. In this way, television theatre has brought communities together.
Esmé Weijun Wang wrote in a letter of recommendation for the New York Times: “Before 2020, I had never before thought to explore theater beyond one or two plays, considering it a luxury for those more able-bodied or in certain cities. Watching plays on a computer screen isn’t a traditional experience, but it gives access to a type of storytelling for thousands who may never be able to enjoy it otherwise.” Television has given theater a whole new audience. Television has made the art form more personal and accessible. One could even argue that, more than ever before, it is by and for the people.
But all live theatre shows recorded and put on television are still just “previously recorded.” Part of the thrill of theater is that it is experienced live. The show must go on, as they say! Across the past decade, broadcast television networks like NBC and Fox have looked for ways to capture the live aspects of theater. In 2013, NBC produced The Sound of Music; this was the first time a theater performance was recorded live on television. 18.62 million people tuned in to watch The Sound of Music Live!, making it NBC’s largest non-sports audience on any night since the 2007 Golden Globes. It got a 4.6 rating, and the success of the broadcast led NBC to make live shows an annual event. After several years of live shows on NBC, and Grease on Fox, fans felt like there was still something missing. Since The Sound of Music Live!, these live shows had been kind of a mixed bag. After A Christmas Story, Live! was televised by Fox in 2017, many critics and viewers alike questioned whether NBC should continue their annual live show tradition. In all the networks’ efforts to capture the live aspects of theater, their audience was forgotten. Remember that cliché about audiences being a key part of a theater production? A Christmas Story, Live! proved to skeptics that audiences are, in fact, crucial to a show.
Much like rock concerts that are recorded live and put on television, NBC’s 2018 Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert finally combined capturing theater live and raw with an audience to give television viewers an electric television experience no one could complain about. The director of Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, Alex Rudzinski, said his goal was to “blend the audience and primary performance area so the demarcation is slightly blurred. The act of making music itself will be a visceral aspect of our storytelling. There is a beautiful, disciplined madness in the whole creation. The kinetic energy from the audience and the focal point of the band being omnipresent — those two elements are what’s going to define us to a degree.” This is the reason Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert was so successful; its creators kept in mind the essence of theater and used the essence of television to accentuate what makes both television and theater great. Television is the most intimate medium, and theater is the most intimate art form. Together, they create a theatrical experience that is its own unique experience, and even better — accessible to all.
Other than Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, what productions have done the best with combining television and theater? This is my opinion, but I’m a big fan of Oh, Hello! Streaming on Netflix, Oh, Hello! is one of the only shows I’ve seen on a streaming service that recognizes and takes advantage of the fact it is going to be on television. Whereas shows like Newsies that are played as usual with no specific accommodations for it being on TV, Oh, Hello! makes jokes about it being a special and recorded for Netflix. The special plays out other jokes by having guests and including both an intro and an outro. Oh, Hello! feels special in the way it’s filmed for Netflix. Even people who saw the show live in the Lyceum Theater could get something new out of seeing it on their television.
When shows make their Broadway television recordings special, it adds to the experience for at-home viewers. They are part of something that is more than just the show, and this creates a unique shared experience amongst the television audience. The medium of television, and Broadway’s increasing experimentations with it, has made people realize theater is for everyone.
We no longer need to have discussions about the morality of bootlegging Broadway shows, because television is an answer that allows everyone to win. It is the future of Broadway and theater as a whole. We all deserve accessible theater. Through television, we get a replication of the in-person theater experience that, executed correctly, can provide a unique viewing experience that can be equally meaningful.
