Live theater is actually a billion dollar industry, Broadway alone did $750mil in 2004. Long running shows bring in hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
Putting out a lousy video copy will scavenge customers who are interested in just seeing what the show is about. Mr Blue Sky wants to see Spamalot, probably to just hear the jokes and songs, once he does, would he be at all interested in seeing the live show? You won’t really make much money unless the DVD gets great sales, and then each sale results in a bunch of people having “experienced” the show.
The “camera at the back of the theater” recording is also just flat out going to suck, for all the reasons mentioned above. Clips of shows on TV never really do the show justice.
Really, the right way to do it is how they did Chicago. A full blown movie, based very tightly on the show, with star power to bring in viewers. This way, you can optimize the story for the big screen and video, make a pretty penny, and still have the Broadway show be differentiated.
I saw Chicago the Movie when it came out and Chicago the Musical a couple of years later. The movie actually made me MORE interested in the live show, as a new way to hear the same story that I enjoyed. I can pretty much guarantee that if I had seen Chicago the Musical on Video, I’d have never shelled out the money to see the live show, since I would have already seen it, sort of.
I really can’t imagine that the film versions would really hurt the road shows or stock companies. Fiddler on the Roof, for example, is imho near perfection as a movie musical, but I’ll see it whenever it’s produced locally, be it road show or community theater, and it’s been a hit on Broadway for the past year 30+ years after the movie. I’ve been to sold out versions of Pippin, Jesus Christ Superstar, Purlie and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, all of which are available or have at some point been available on DVDs taped from the stage cast- it’s the thrill of seeing it done live that pulls people to the theater. In fact, it actually encourages revivals to be more creative.
PS- it would seem particularly a good idea to release onto video shows that weren’t huge hits on B’way. I seriously doubt that any community theater will have the resources to mount productions of, say, Sunset Blvd (the cost of Norma’s mausoleum-palace would be too prohibitive) or La Cage aux Folles (the most recent flopped revival), but it’s possible they could rake in some money from video sales.
As SpoilerVirgin says the stage revival of Oklahoma starring Hugh Jackman is available on DVD. Not only is it a great staging of the musical it is just about a perfect translation of the theatre experience to film. The extras include lots of background about the process involved and is great viewing for any fans of the theatre.
Disclaimer: I’m a NYer who sees several shows a week.
Yeah, it’s hard for some people to get to New York. To quote my favorite movie line ever, “The hard is what makes it great.”
I’d love to go swimming in Maui every weekend, but I can’t do that without going there. Why should the rest of the country have easy access to the thing that makes my city special?
