Filming Musicals on Stage

But not in a bootleg way. Unless you're into that.

Something Old

Live theater has been dark for months and won’t be returning for months more. Why can’t I just stream musicals instead? Hamilton on Disney+ was one of the biggest media events of 2020, so it seems ridiculous that Broadway producers don’t film live versions of all their hits.

I would, from the bottom of my heart, love to live in a world where live theater was frequently recorded and available for streaming. It would fundamentally change the accessibility of theater, which currently is wildly concentrated on upper-class people in New York City and other massive cities. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, I MISS THEATER AND I WANT IT BACK NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

In the meantime, though, why don’t Broadway producers film every show and sell them to the highest streaming service bidder?

Broadway musicals are recorded, and sometimes even live streamed, but it’s relatively uncommon. Unless you’re Sondheim in the 1980s, then you film every show you write for some reason. I’m getting ahead of myself, though: what are the barriers to filming?

I’m sure it’ll shock you to learn that it’s about money. While Hamilton was a smash success on Disney+, very few shows will ever be like Hamilton. Producers worry that if a professional recording is easily available, it will deflate ticket sales and wreck their bottom line. Supporters of filming often dismiss this line of thinking outright, claiming that seeing what a show really looks like, instead of just listening to it, only makes people want to experience it for themselves more. I certainly agree with that—when the show is good. If the recording reveals that it’s fine, but not “let’s pay Broadway prices” level, I can see why a producer might be skittish about letting anyone in the world take a peek.

Even that’s a few steps down the line, however. The first barrier is the actual cost of filming. Recording a Broadway show is expensive—often prohibitively so, as it can be years before a Broadway show starts to make money for its investors. Most shows don’t recoup their investments, so sinking in even more funding isn’t on a lot of producers’ to-do lists. There’s also a tremendous amount of paperwork that has to be done, since securing the rights for a filmed production is an entire process on top of all the contracts and unions they’re dealing with to get the stage show made in the first place.

All of that being said, some shows do get recorded, and not just the Hamiltons of the world. In many European countries, theater is subsidized by the government and digital initiatives are required for that state funding. That means that there’s a much deeper catalogue of British productions than American ones, with musicals and plays alike filmed with big stars.

On the other hand, the world’s most comprehensive record of professional theater is in the United States. Unfortunately, you can’t watch it. Probably.

The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library has been preserving theater since 1970; they have a collection of over 5000 productions. However, you can only view them by physically going to the library, with a library card, and making an appointment to view a show as a theater academic or professional who is watching it for study. It’s not exactly a Broadway musical movie night vibe. That pesky copyright again—the library is only able to document all of these shows because of the strict viewing parameters, so they can’t just be loaded onto Hulu. Also, since they’re primarily for academic study, they’re not exactly filmed as cinematically as Hamilton.

All of that being said, there is an ever-growing collection of stage musicals available for streaming on various platforms. BroadwayHD is perhaps the best place to source them right now, although it’s far from the Netflix of Broadway that it wants to be someday. With streaming rights all over the place, you may have to piece together your faves from many different sources.

While you’re searching “how to watch company 2011??”, let’s talk about a few milestones in the recording of stage musicals. One of the earliest professionally filmed shows was Pippin in 1981. It was filmed for Canadian television—those Commonwealth advantages coming in clutch—and while it featured many Broadway stars, it was a shortened version of the show.

As I alluded to before, Sondheim had an interesting run in the 1980s. Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and A Little Night Music were all distributed within ten years of each other, making up over half of the Broadway-caliber recorded musicals in that span. This was done in partnership with PBS, which set the stage for PBS being the major driver of filmed Broadway shows in the decades that followed.

Cats was recorded on the West End in 1998, which honestly I only mention because it is better than the horror movie they made in 2019. It’s not, per say, “good,” but it is better. The dancing is fun, and you only feel like you’re losing your mind a little bit rather than a lot.

Meanwhile, things were starting to pick up a little more in the US. Lincoln Center is a key player in the “let’s film Broadway shows” game, usually distributing them in partnership with PBS. Then a very fun development occurred in 2007, when Legally Blonde was filmed for MTV. So long PBS, there’s a new landmark cultural channel in town! MTV went on to produce a reality show called Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods, which is an absolute masterpiece. Every Broadway musical should get a reality show. Imagine the confessionals for The Bachelor: Dear Evan Hansen.

Anyway, the final performance of Rent was filmed in 2008 and had a limited theatrical release. It was the first Broadway musical to be shown in major North American movie theaters. That milestone was one-upped in 2011, when Memphis was filmed and shown in the theaters—the first time a show was shown in theaters while still running on Broadway.

The ultimate step in recording Broadway musicals was made in 2016, when She Loves Me became the first show to be broadcast live. It was a limited engagement, so producers weren’t as worried about potentially depressing ticket sales. It also helped put BroadwayHD on the map, as it had the honor of hosting the first Broadway livestream.

There is a notable trend beyond advancements in recording live shows on Broadway. Starting with The Sound of Music Live in 2013, a few different television networks embraced the idea of live musicals produced for TV. My personal opinion is that this exercise peaked with Grease Live! The cast was excellent and the live gimmick worked out with fun production choices. The vast awkwardness potential peaked with Rent: Live, when a last-minute injury and lack of understudy led to them showing most of the dress rehearsal instead of… an actually live show. It didn’t exactly capture the magic of theater.

That brings us back to 2020, when Hamilton dropped onto the very small screen and became the show that launched a thousand think pieces. I guess this is my own think piece, and for that I apologize.

There are a few fun patterns here. One is that widely available recordings are getting more common over time—they’re still not the norm by any means, but the trend is in the right direction. And while Hamilton is a standout, its film will undoubtedly not negatively affect ticket sales (when those exist again), which will hopefully propel these initiatives forward in the future.

Of course, we really have no idea what the future of theater is going to look like. But there has been a rush of previously recorded shows being made available, some for the first time. Andrew Lloyd Webber created the YouTube channel “The Shows Must Go On” to make his shows available for streaming for limited periods of time. Places like 54 Below, which record shows but are unable to distribute them due to copyright restrictions, made them available during free live streams. You had to be there at a certain time in order to watch them—you know, like a live show. Theater is going to look very different for a long time, but I believe that expanded live streaming and digital distribution will be part of those changes. Right now producers are planning to film and distribute Diana before it even opens on Broadway. Who knows what might come next?

One last pattern I’d like to note is that shows are more likely to get recorded if they have some kind of established media empire behind them. Some of the recent non-PBS musicals available for streaming include Shrek the Musical, Newsies, and Spongebob Squarepants—all adaptations of movies and TV shows with financial backing from major studios. So what I’m saying is, where is my film of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark?

Something New

• The biggest recent news for Broadway is that the American Theater Wing has actually decided to hold a (digital) Tony Awards ceremony this year. Due to a season that shuttered right before a slew of shows opened, there are only four musicals eligible for awards. One of them is The Lightning Thief, which personally brings me a lot of joy. I’m rooting for you, dorky little kid musical.

• Julianne Moore and Amy Adams have been announced as Heidi Hansen and Cynthia Murphy, respectfully, rounding out the principal cast for the Dear Evan Hansen movie adaptation. Everyone’s collective knowledge that Ben Platt is too old to play a high schooler, let alone a high schooler with a very complicated arc that will almost certainly come off as deeply disturbing when you’re watching a grown man manipulate a grieving family, has been unable to recast him from the lead role.

Something Borrowed

In the future I might theme the “something borrowed” section to my main topic, but this video of Jonathan Groff describing the times he forgot the words in Spring Awakening is the only way to kick this off. It’s just delightful and I’ve watched it approximately seven thousand times. (Fair warning, contains adult language)

Something Blue

Casey Mink is a brilliant writer at Backstage and has an insightful twitter feed. She isn’t afraid to call out the (many, many) problems in professional theater while celebrating the people and projects that make this industry better.

Epilogue

Thanks so much for reading the first issue of Getting Married Today! This is a pilot run of this newsletter, so there will be a new issue every Thursday during September and October; after October I’ll be evaluating the format and schedule. If you enjoyed this issue, I would appreciate you sharing it with a friend who might like it as well. You know, a giant nerd. And if you are that giant nerd who got this from a friend, subscribe so you don’t miss the next issue!