Musical theater is an expensive art form, and fans on a budget – or those who live far from the major cities where original productions flourish and touring companies visit – may get few opportunities to experience their passion.
Enter Streaming Musicals, a new experiment in making live musical theater affordable and accessible for audiences, and remunerative for the artists involved. Professional productions are staged and filmed live, but without an audience, in a theater or on a soundstage; then the show is made available via the internet for rental or purchase. Everyone involved shares in the profits from this hybrid of the live and the recorded, with the income stream continuing as long as internet viewers are willing to pay.
And there’s an Austen connection! Streaming Musicals launched last night by offering a musical version of Emma, adapted by Tony-nominated composer Paul Gordon and staged and filmed earlier this year in New York. Viewers pay $7.99 to rent the two-hour film, or $19.99 to buy it.
At least four previous musical versions of Emma exist, and although some of the publicity touts the Streaming Musicals show as “new,” Gordon’s Emma is in fact one of the four: It was first produced in 2006-7, winning excellent reviews for several regional productions.
Judging from photos, however, the older productions were traditional period pieces, whereas the new version updates the setting and costumes to the mid-twentieth century. Whether this choice is bold or foolhardy remains to be seen: It’s sometimes tricky to make Austen’s stories work in modern contexts, as legions of fanfic writers have learned to their – or our -- cost.
I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but the musical snippets available online seem charming. And it’s hard not to root for a venture that hopes to give more people access to both live theater and Jane Austen.
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