#2 - Unlocking musical theatre
How bootlegs, cast recordings, pro shots and digital theatre can save musicals
I owe a lot to cast recordings and to bootlegs.
My first encounters with any musical theatre was through cast recordings. Initially this took the form of cassettes listened to in the car with key examples being Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Cats and Joseph. We listened to these shows many times before we eventually got to see them on annual family trips to the West End. I remember being entranced by the emotive and engaging storytelling. By the characters and their predicaments. I liked pop music but I loved this.
Later as a teenager having seen amateur productions of Sondheim's Company and Merrily We Roll Along I decided to buy the original cast recordings of every Sondheim show and listen to them month by month. Again I had listened to and digested all of these long before I ever saw a Sondheim show onstage. I got so intrigued by Follies that at 17 years old I ordered a cassette tape bootleg audio of the original 1971 production from eBay and listened to it while reading the script I bought from Foyles.
During my time at university I made regular trips to the much missed Dress Circle record shop purposefully to discover new musicals by writers who had barely made it over to the UK for productions. Writers like Adam Guettel, Michael John LaChiusa, Jeanine Tesori and Jason Robert Brown.
It was also during those years that with the arrival of YouTube I not only started to watch bootlegs of shows like Wicked and Avenue Q but also I started to watch recordings of concerts from New York's 54 below, Joe's Pub and Le Poisson Rouge where I got to know the early work of writers like Pasek and Paul, Joe Iconis and Kerrigan and Lowdermilk.
Bootlegs and cast recordings showed me what musical theatre was and could be. Let me listen to it over and over again. Let me analyse it, absorb it. Learn about it. Moreover they let me grow to care about shows even without having the money or opportunity to go and see all of them in the theatre. Some of these shows were too expensive. Some of these shows were only playing across an ocean. Some of these shows had not even been produced yet.
There is a bizarre and privileged view that theatre only really counts when it is seen in person. That it only counts if you are in the room where it happens. But it is my experience that theatre is a polyphonic stack of multiple woven layers. Layers that are almost as interesting when taken apart as when viewed together.
I would never say a video bootleg or an audio recording is better than seeing a show in person. But the situation, level of engagement, temporality and circumstances of our engagement with these forms are different than in person theatre. They provide benefits of repetition and access. They allow new types of communality. They are certainly not competing with in person theatre. They are different. And different isn’t better or worse. It's different.
There is also a strange view that has been around for years that somehow cast recordings and bootleg video dilute and endanger the in person experience. Purists argue that audiences should attend the theatre without spoiling the story or knowing too much in advance. But I would always argue that having ways to engage with musicals that surround the in person experience is never a bad thing. Sports, pop music, films, books all have peripheral ways of getting more information and in depth engagement and analysis from them. Things that surround and interact with the main event. These additional things augment and interconnect. They don't take away, they add.
I first went to the theatre because of the tapes me and my mum listened to in the car. I first went to see a Sondheim musical because of two amateur productions and a bunch of Sondheim CDs. I heard and saw a new generation of new musical theatre writers on grainy YouTube videos and sound desk recordings traded on message boards. None of these things made me less willing or excited to go to in person theatre. They made me more excited and more willing to do so. But they also gave me a wealth of new and important experiences that I simply couldn't have had any other way.
What I find most absurd about those who denounce bootlegs and recordings is that theatre is not a homogenous experience. Everyone in an audience has a different view. Every show is different. Shows are performed by different casts and in different venues. Theatre is never homogenous. It is not one fixed thing or idea. Hence denouncing those seeking other ways of watching theatre feels mean spirited to me and if also feels like it privileges only the people who can get to the world's major cities and spent the money that it costs.
Yes of course I agree that in person theatre is unique and special and overwhelming and beautiful. But theatre is a multitude of other possibilities too. And why are some so obsessed with the idea that creating more opportunities to digest and present theatre somehow dilutes it. Why is theatre the only thing where making more of it somehow makes some people fear there will be less?
As with cast recordings and bootlegs some of my formative theatre experiences were from VHS tapes and DVDS. The original film of the Cats stage production and the beloved 10th anniversary Les Miserables Concert as well as the Hey Mr Producer concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
In the pre pandemic years we occasionally saw pro shots of in person theatre. Multicam recordings of Broadway and West End shows like Legally Blonde, Oklahoma, Into The Woods, Sunday In The Park With George, Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Tommy, Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots, She Loves Me and Everybody Loves Jamie meant that audiences could watch full productions in the way I had listened to cast recordings. Far from diminishing interest in the in person experiences, these films democratised theatre and if anything made new fans and drove audiences to the theatre for the first time.
As the Pandemic made theatre impossible we started to see pro shots of theatre become even more common with shows like Hamilton and Come From Away reach wide audiences. Recently Diana premiered in pro shot form before it is due to make its Broadway Debut reaching - for better or worse - millions of people all over the world.
Which brings me to digital theatre. I have seen a lot of people deriding digital theatre for the simple fact that they don’t see it as real theatre. That they see in person theatre as the only real theatre. But as I’ve said above. Theatre is not one homogenous thing. It is a stack of things. It is a web of things. And digital theatre can be both its own part of that web and stack and also a way of peripherally augmenting in person theatre. I do not believe it is a threat to in person theatre. Like bootlegs and cast recordings, films of theatre and digital theatre can be a gateway and a secondary text, but also its own unique experience.
In some cases digital theatre has allowed musicals to exist in an entirely new way which circumvents theatres entirely. Which allows new work to be created and seen without even needing to hire a theatre or find an in person audience.
In 2020 and 2021 I was able to produce three entirely new musicals as pieces of digital theatre. All of these pieces were world premieres and would have found it tough to make it past the gatekeepers required to get onstage in a traditional way.
Shift+Alt+Right was a live digital musical that was entirely conceived to be presented online and was streamed on location from my flat. It gave audiences all over the world the first chance to see the work of writer Hilmi Jaidin.
The Fabulist Fox Sister by Luke Bateman and Michael Conley, and Public Domain by Francesca Forristal and Jordan Clarke made their premieres online streamed live from The Southwark Playhouse. Neither would have been produced traditionally at such an early stage but each was able to find audiences in the thousands. Public Domain then progressed to an in person production in London’s West End. Something that would have never happened without the new era of digital theatre.
Digital theatre not only allows writers and theatre makers to circumvent the gatekeepers that often have a fixed idea of the sort of shows that belong in their theatres but also enables new audiences from every corner of the earth to engage with them.
I also was able to produce over 20 concerts of new songs from writers all over the world which could be watched live online and commented on by a hungry community of viewers who found new songs, shows and writers to care about and new shows whose journeys they could follow.
These new works of art were no longer secondary texts but primary texts. Pieces of art in their own right with just as much imagination and integrity as the ones found and seen in person.
Sports, film, stand up comedy and music are well known to be excellent when seen in person. They are full of atmosphere, adrenaline and the magic of a physiological shared experience. But all of these things are also seen in a multitude of other ways. They are broadcast on television, seen on streaming services, watched cut up into clips and episodes on social media and YouTube.
Theatre is often described as something that has never changed since it was pioneered by the greeks. It is described as nothing more than the coming together of people in a shared space with an empty space as a stage and their communal imagination to guide the way.
But the idea that theatre hasn’t changed since the greeks is I’m sorry to say - nostalgic bullshit. Technology has enlivened every element of theatre. From lighting and video design, to sound design, to innovative sets and costumes. Theatre has evolved just as surely as other forms and why should we cap its continued evolution just because of the privileged cries that “theatre isn’t theatre unless you are in the room”.
I am sick of people denouncing other types of theatre because “it doesn’t feel the same”. No one said it was the same! But just because something isn’t the same, that doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad. It also feels like comparing in person theatre with other types of theatrical offering is a false binary. Not everyone can get to in person theatre all the time. Just because you can, it doesn’t mean that everyone else has to suffer. Just because you dislike something it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist.
I can well imagine that there are football fans who think watching their beloved team play in any other way other than in person is sacrilege. There are indeed fans who follow their teams around the country to every home and away game and wouldn’t dare watch a game on television or listen to it on the radio, or watch the highlights scrolling online. But I promise you, the fans who only watch games in person are the exception. A lot of other people have benefitted from and enjoyed the democratisation of sports. Just as many have benefitted from watching their favourite band perform at Glastonbury on BBC or those who have watched their favourite stand up comedians on Netflix performing a set at Maddison Square Garden.
Another thing to remember is that watching pro shots, or listening to cast recordings, or watching bootlegs, or buying a ticket to a piece of Digital theatre. IS MUCH CHEAPER. It is a great way to give something a go rather than having to morgage your house to take your family to a west end show. Not only that but there are those with access requirements for who theatre that is not in person adds a new layer of freedom.
Making digital theatre and finding new methods of creation and collaboration has in may ways has allowed me to meet myself coming back. It has allowed the me of 2021 to make friends with the teenager who scoured record shops and the internet for songs and stories that would end up making his and my life more worthwhile. Musical theatre is the intersection of music and stories. It works really really well in person but it works well in a lot of other ways too. Some of the most luminous moments of my life have been experiencing stories and songs through headphones or over speakers, or on grainy footage, or on a living room television with my friends and family. Recently I have loved commenting and live chatting as songs and stories are broadcast live around the world. None of this makes me want to go in person to the theatre any less. In fact it makes me want to go more. But by making more theatre that is more accessible, more affordable and making music and stories digestible in new ways. I believe we are making theatre that will be more democratic, more robust, more lasting and just plain more than it ever can be if we keep it locked in rooms.
Other thoughts on Digital Theatre (Tweets I didn’t tweet)
Since I’m spending less time on Twitter here are some more tweet-like ideas about digital theatre to add to the above.
The producers and unions that are blocking digital theatre, pro shots and the democratisation of the form need to take a long hard look at how they can stop holding back theatre and find new and disruptive business models that work. Theatre ticket prices are too high and yet people aren’t being paid enough. Surely that means we need to embrace new revenue streams and new audiences?
How can we stop false scarcity for digital theatre? Netflix doesn’t limit the number of people who can view their television shows and films, why are some theatres and unions forcing the limiting of ticket sales?
Rights holders need to start letting more digital theatre happen and license more pro shots and digital productions. Amateur theatre rights haven’t somehow diminished professional theatre. They have expanded and elevated it.
Cast recordings are seen as valuable marketing tools and are often released when a show opens. Why are digital versions of shows not also released in a similar way and on a similar time scale?
Digital theatre should in my opinion be about higher volumes and lower ticket prices. It should also be potentially used as an additional revenue stream to subsidise in person theatre to make it more affordable.
Call me an idealist but I think every single show should be streamed or filmed and released publicly. Of course there is a beautiful ephemerality to theatre but also there is great value in being able to watch a show long after it has closed. Of course we should make sure that the people who made it and performed in it are still paid.
The producers shouldn’t be the only people who benefit from digital and filmed theatre. The internet was intended to be democratic and non hierarchical and is an opportunity to empower artists and performers more rather than just further edify the hegemonic nature of big budget capitalist musical theatre. App stores and self publishing have empowered artists to meet their audiences without people in the middle taking all of the profits. I think there is a way that new business models could really empower artists.
Yes there is a lot of poor quality digital theatre and filmed theatre. But we should not judge a medium by its worst output. There is now a lot of extremely high quality work that can be created without spending loads of money. Those who are snobby about digital theatre often saw a few bad examples and just gave up. That isn’t a reason to stop. Its a reason to generate more, high quality work.
A lot of theatres made digital theatre while they were closed to full capacity audiences and then stopped the second the rules were relaxed. They wanted things to go back to normal. But this seems wrong to me. There is a new normal, a better normal that is possible. We should be calling on all theatres to continue offering hybrid and Digital theatre offerings.
I want fewer film adaptations of musicals and more pro shots of musicals.
I think we need a term for theatre that is not in person. Rather than it simply being thought of as not theatre or non in person theatre. I was wondering about non corporeal theatre but thats a bit pretentious. Any ideas?
Why shouldn’t it be a musical?
I really dislike the fact that an intelligent, respected academic would perpetuate this sort of thought. Why shouldn’t there be a Spring Awakening musical? Why shouldn’t there be musicals about anything and everything? I have seen and read the play of Spring Awakening and in many ways the musical really gets further under the skin of the young characters and portrays and unravels the impossible sadness, guilt, exhilaration and shame through song.
I don’t get how academics can be extremely passionate about german Regitheater and the way directors deconstruct and remix canonical texts and then be widely dismissive about musical adaptations.
A bold new deconstructed Spring Awakening with songs at the Schaubühne would be met with widespread delight by academics and highbrow audiences and yet a musical always seems like a reason to undermine.
For me it is the fact that the term musical and its many undermining associations are so handcuffed to the name of the medium itself. This is something that I hope we can change.
Thank you for reading
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As usual, Adam, a post full of insight and wisdom. Supplementary thought: Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice's big breakthrough came with JC Superstar, as is well known. I was a schoolboy at the time, and what was unusual, one could almost say mould-breaking, was that JCS had been released as a concept album long before it arrived in a theatre. We listened to that album at school because in many ways it seemed, in terms of idiom, closer to the rock concept albums you'd buy (with the benefit of hindsight) by rather pretentious bands and artists whose epic pseudo-historical doodlings were all over the album charts like Japanese Knotweed. We'd not expect as mere penniless teenagers to go and see the massive live shows theses bands made of their concept albums but if anyone was lucky enough to get a ticket somehow, minds were duly blown etc etc. ALW's move was seen at the time as hugely risky - throwing investment at an album intended one day to go to a West End theatre - what if people just bought the album but didn't bother with the live show? In fact he was proved spectacularly right and the love how was an instant triumph, with a ready-made box office advance & already-hooked audience. in 2021 that may not seem so revelatory a tale, but believe me at the time it was a completely fresh approach, rooted in the idea borrowed from Broadway shows of the 20s and 30s, whose songs were widely known, promoted and recorded well in advance of the opening of the theatre show.
My reason for mentioning this is twofold. 1. you are correct in your piece above that it is a myth that audiences won't go to something they've already got to know in some other form. Indeed, the opposite is true, because opening a NEW musical in the West End (ie, with entirely new music not filched from some popster's back catalogue or recycled from eg a film soundtrack) is - compared to NY - almost impossible without something the London/UK audience is already at ease with - a big star, a famous property, the following wind of a regional tour with fabulous word of mouth etc - in other words, you'd take to the West End something that was already successful, not something you HOPED would be successful. This is broadly speaking because audiences here will give a new play - about which they know not much - the benefit of the doubt but rarely a new musical. Unfamiliar music is a really uphill struggle in the WE, whereas in NY there is an in-built appetite and interest from audiences in the very concept of brand-new musicals. I was struck on my last visit to a Broadway Show (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) how in the interval in the upper, upper circle (well, whatever it was called it was miles away from the stage!) the punters were eagerly, intelligently discussing (in a positive though critical way, as it happens) the merits and style of the - to them - entirely unfamiliar score & songs. It has often been said, correctly, that HAMILTON or SPRING AWAKENING, FUN HOME, DEH or RENT couldn't have been grown and nurtured here as they were in the States (and, including FROM FAR AWAY, Canada) - this isn't just about producer willingness or workshop-capability or critical inexperience, it's about the audience. The WE audience is fearful of new music theatre and critics generally (though not universally) relatively unknowledgeable about music (reflecting, perhaps helpfully, the audience) at least not in the way they are instinctively knowledgeable about spoken plays and Digital theatre, like ALW's JCS on a concept album, gives our reticent, new-music-averse domestic market a chance to become familiar with material. It's a win-win.
2. Because of the conditions outlined above, digital theatre may, like ALW's revolution 50 years ago, be something that works even better as a model here than in NY. There are other reasons why this might be the case - generally less cash floating around to develop new shows or to take big risks with them than in NY, so digital premieres would be away of maximising what interest there is pending further uptake, and the fact that the cost of artists (for better or worse) is lower, and our amazing workforce is concentrated in a small and accessible geographical area. Added to the increasing importance for regional theatres to consolidate their limited resources via co-production, having easily distributable material that can be widely shared is a big bonus. Finally, the ticking time-bomb of the UK's herd immunity, non-mask-wearing approach to covid means that (a) many people over 50, prior to the pandemic a massively important demographic for the survival of any theatre, public or commercial, are still reluctant, despite vaccinations, to go into enclosed, non-AC-ed old buildings with hundreds or other people, 50% of whom might be unmasked, and (b) the scale of our collective failure to control the virus compared to the rest of the planet will mean, sooner or later, some kind of further restrictions my HAVE to be introduced thus hitting our theatre sector yet again. Mark Shenton has written passionately about this in recent days/weeks/months and he is right: the current trend is very, very worrying for anyone working in theatre. So digital theatre HERE may end up being a lifeboat for new theatre work of all kinds, a lifeboat that is less necessary to survival in many other theatre-making countries of the world. Keep up the good work!
Great post. I often hold off on listening to a cast album in order to save the surprise of experiencing the story and its surprises 'live', in the room - but then, I live in London! So I agree that digital theatre and cast albums are essential for people who can't make it to theatre cities, or afford theatre trips. Re another term for "non-corporeal theatre" - howzabout "filmed theatre" or, to capture cast albums too, "recorded theatre"?