New Subscription Service Offers Live-Streaming Broadway Shows

If you can’t make it in person to see the neon lights of Broadway, there’s now another option for fans of the theater: a new subscription service is offering up on-demand, live-streaming theatrical productions. I know what you’re thinking — how will I be able to aggressively shush the annoying people talking throughout?

Two veteran Broadway producers teamed up to start BroadwayHD, Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley, who have worked in the past on partnering with networks to broadcast stage performances, reports Mashable. Technology has come along way, making it easier to provide live content on-demand to audiences anywhere with an internet connection.

“The streaming thing, the whole convenience of ‘what I want when I want it,’ is just how people are conditioned to consume their entertainment nowadays,” Comley told Mashable. “It’s how the business is evolving. It’s art meets theater meets the Internet.”

Customers can choose from a monthly subscription ($14.99), a yearly membership ($169.99), or pay à la carte to watch one specific show. There will also be some free content.

But what about ticket sales? Won’t they suffer? Nah, say BroadwayHD’s founders — it’s totally different than being in the theater with other people and reacting to the live performers on stage. Actors will be sweating, spitting, crying and acting in real time, however, which provides some of that live experience without the trip to New York City.

“This is part of an evolution,” Lane told the Associated Press. “We’re never going to replace the communal experience of seeing actors live. I understand that. New York has an amazing caliber of talent — of writers, directors and performers — that we’d like to share with the world. If they can’t get here in time, we can share that with the world in the best way we can.”