Virtual theatre isn’t going anywhere – In fact, it’s been here all along

In a recent interview with Variety, Lin-Manuel Miranda discussed the impact filmed productions and movie adaptations of staged works can have on the live performances. He acknowledged that nothing can replace the experience of being in the live space, but that it also doesn’t mean there is no place for filmed performances and movie adaptations side by side. He rightfully acknowledged the limitations of getting people in the room in the first place. “I don’t think we go back to a world where a show premieres on Broadway, and then no one can see it unless they have two hundred bucks. I think producers are going to have to start thinking about how they’re going to capture [their work] because in capturing it they can actually capture a much larger audience for their live show.”

Back in the days when Netflix and Netflix Instants were two separate things (so like, around 2010?), the streaming service had an entire section of Musicals. Here, I was introduced to many wonderfully filmed adaptations of Broadway classics – Funny Girl, Yentl, Hello, Dolly!; a lot of Barbra Streisand.

Hidden amongst these gems, though, was something I had never seen before: the 1991 release of the original cast of Into the Woods. I’m not exaggerating when I say I watched that taping 50 times at the very least. This performance happened before I was even born, yet here I was enjoying the likes of Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason as if I were sitting in the front row. I was thoroughly obsessed. When I looked around for more filmed performances, I began to realize that Into the Woods was the anomaly, and filmed performances were an incredibly contentious topic.

The debate often comes down to money. “But, if you release the recorded version, people won’t need to come see the live performance!” And yeah, I hear what you’re saying. This is a very legitimate concern. But as Lin points out and as we’ve all seen during this pandemic, this simply isn’t true in practice. Our thirst for connection and storytelling doesn’t go away when we don’t have access to live theater.

We’ve known for decades now that the market for bootleg filming isn’t going away anytime soon. Just to be clear: I do not condone bootleg filming. It’s a huge distraction to actors and audience members alike. But I admit that I have hungrily consumed my fair share of blurry, echoing videos of shows that I would never have the opportunity to see live, and I know plenty of others who have as well. Producers should acknowledge at this point that there is a real demand for filmed performances.

If anything, I believe that taking the time to film one performance and releasing it could potentially cut down on night-after-night cellphone cinematographers just by filling in the market. Not only that, but an officially released filmed performance can be a major profit generator. There are so many more people who can’t afford the live ticket but can afford a virtual one, bringing a whole new revenue stream into play.

I think it goes further than profit though. Anyone in the industry will tell you that no one is in it solely for the money. On the contrary, there’s often not much to be made in it except for those at the top. No, they’re in it for the love of the art, for the passion of storytelling, for the love of connection, for the opportunity to touch a heart and spark a thought. In the spirit of that, the driving force behind art and creation, shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to be getting stories out to as many people as possible?

Look, there’s no use pretending that capitalism and profit don’t play a huge part in this conversation. The art that gets funded is the art that is expected to make money back, to recoup the investment and make profit, then go on tour and have an adaptation and a record-breaking run, or at least several successful revivals. In this light, let’s be honest about one thing: the demographic that is buying most live theater tickets isn’t exactly diverse. The population who can afford the most live professional theater is overwhelmingly over 65, white, financially stable, and can travel to or live in New York or a major city. That is an awfully specific group of people, and when you’re playing to a specific customer, it severely limits the art that you can make.

We ring the church bells again and again for “the death of the theatre”, but we refuse to stop digging the grave. The lack of accessibility to a younger, more diverse audience is a vicious cycle of our own creation. We aren’t giving them a way for them to get in the room, and when they aren’t there, we produce shows that wouldn’t speak to them anyway.

We have the power to break this cycle and bring a new, broader generation of theatre-goers into the conversation. We saw it done with Hamilton’s filmed performance. Give a wide group of people from multiple backgrounds and walks of life a way to hear the story told and tell them a story that they want to see told. Just like that, you can bring a generation into the fold. We just need to get off our high horses and take the first step. The theater is a sacred space that should be treated as such, but maybe for an evening my bedroom or my living room can become an extension of that sacred space and I can participate as well.

It isn’t as if we haven’t already been exposed to several versions of virtual theatre already. The annual performances at the Tony Awards or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have been a staple of Broadway musical promotion for quite some time now, and very successfully. Have you ever tried to get your hands on a ticket for a show that’s just won Best Musical? Forget it.

I remember seeing the performance with Alex Newell for Once on This Island and saving for a month to get to the city to see it, I was so enchanted. I realize that these performances are only snippets, but honestly, they could have performed the entire show and I still would have wanted to go see it live. It’s true, there’s just really something special about being in the room, and these filmed performances make the hunger grow every time.

I’ll throw another example out there – have any of you ever watched A Very Potter Musical on Youtube, the show that helped get Darren Criss to stardom on Glee? This show, created by a group of college students as a parody musical of Harry Potter and posted for free on YouTube went viral, and StarKid Productions, otherwise known as Team StarKid, has gone on to produce 12 stage musicals and 12 albums on the Billboard charts, including the first student-produced musical recording to chart on Billboard. They’ve posted all of their performances for free on Youtube since 2009, and according to their Wikipedia page have over 274,000,000 combined views.

This company is an incredible testament to the power of filmed performances and what kind of art can be made when you expand your available audience, including one of my favorites, The Trail to Oregon, a musical comedy based on the computer game of the same name, where the audience chose both the names of the characters and who would die every night à la The Mystery of Edwin Drood. If you haven’t checked them out yet please do, then let me know so we can carpool to their next live performance.

The National Theatre of London has been releasing filmed performances from their archives and even live broadcasts into cinemas worldwide since 2009. For $25 I could go to the movie theater on a Tuesday night and see shows like War Horse, The Audience with Helen Mirren, One Man, Two Guvnors with James Corden, and the switching cast of Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller. If the National Theatre of London can release performances worldwide without fear of losing their live audience base, surely the Great White Way can as well.

It’s not enough for those of us who consider storytelling vital to society and culture to talk the talk. Our stories can’t reach the people who may need them the most if we don’t take advantage of modern technology and make our stories accessible to the little girls like I was, who took the OBC recording of Into the Woods to play during an MRI appointment and had to warn the technicians not to be startled when Rapunzel screams. This is how we will nurture the next generation of theatre artists, a generation who will be far more than a generation of children born into the wealth and privilege that has previously been necessary to be exposed to live theater, and their art will reflect that diversity if we take advantage of this moment of change and act.

The stories we tell change people’s lives and affect how we view the world around us, and we have a responsibility to get them out there. It surely will lead to a richer world of theater for all of us.