Love It or Hate It, Broadway Should Stream Audience-less Performances for the Foreseeable Future
Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
Just like many of you, I want Broadway shows to resume. But I also understand that they will resume once it’s deemed safe to return for all involved. It’s going to be a tricky and complicated process to make sure that happens and also satisfy organizations that represent these parties.
While theatre owners, producers, and union heads are trying to come up with plans, a simple solution (as long as it’s deemed to be safe for all involved to return to these spaces) would for performances to be streamed with no audiences. Yes, I hate the idea too. But if you really think about it, it might make the most sense for the Broadway economy to start moving once again.
A couple of days ago, the New York Times shared a photo of a theatre in Germany that welcomed a socially distanced audience to views a music performance. The theatre typically houses 1,000 patrons, but only 200 were admitted. Here is what it looked like from the stage.
Gordon Welters for The New York Times
While that might work for smaller entities, audiences like this aren’t going to help sustain Hamilton or Wicked. The median cost average of a Broadway show is $455,000 a week. Given that NYC will have strict social distancing plans in place and wouldn’t allow 1,000+ people to gather in any space, I don’t see how shows come close to breaking even if only a quarter of the house is allowed to sit in the theatre. This is why I think these producers and union heads really need to start considering that streamed performances with no or small audiences are the way to go.
It’s going to be a challenge to lure people into the theatres, to begin with, let along hoping that the tourist industry in NYC is going to kick back up once lockdowns are lifted. You would have a tough enough time getting me back into a crowded theatre and you definitely won’t get me to pay high priced orchestra tickets either. I’ve read from many that feel the same. Never before has the “health risk vs. the reward” come into play when deciding to buy a theatre ticket. But this is the new normal.
However, if you offered me the chance to watch Jagged Little Pill from the comfort and safety of my own home for $75, I would pluck my money down immediately.
This is where Broadway can make their money back and even thrive.
Under a plan like this, rather than record nightly performances, productions could shoot one performance on Monday and make it available for a 24-48 hour rental. They could perform nightly on a live Broadcast but that would cost a fortune and the idea is to make money for all involved.
This way, not only is the show bringing in money, it could potentially exceed the capacity of the house. The Gershwin Theatre, which houses Wicked, seats 1,933. If they offered 24-hour rentals of a streamed performance at $50-$100, I’d bet anything that they would earn more in that streaming session than they would at one performance, if not more.
And this might sound goofy but to perhaps attract higher sales, why not record the performance from all seating areas in the theatre? Do you want to view the show from the center-mezzanine? That’s $50. Want to view it from the center-orchestra? $100.
This plan would also keep everyone safer in the theatre as well. Performers and crews wouldn’t have to worry about what health the audience is in. They wouldn’t need to do temperature checks at the lobby door or worry about audience members who don’t want to wear masks. Cell phones were bad enough, but how disruptive do you think it will be when someone has a coughing fit during a performance?
Streaming performances removes all those issues. Will producers go for this? I don’t know. Will the unions go for this? One never can tell.
None of this is ideal and no one wants this. I’m sure we all want to just return back to normal life and start attending theatre the way we used to. But the reality is that’s not going to happen, not for a couple of years at least. So if Broadway and other theatres want to seriously get back to business and return to some form of normalcy, this might be the best option.