CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Livestreaming and Live Theatre: A Promising New Industry

AMT Lab @ CMU: These last two years have forced audiences to seek out arts opportunities and engagements through new mediums. Theatre organizations around the world closed their doors, forced to look for new ways to interact with their audiences. Many turned to digital content, such as streaming and livestreaming. While these two mediums appear to be similar, they are entirely different forms of media.

3 comments:

Phoebe Huggett said...

I recognize that this went off topic but my mind drifted off from the article at hand a bit in terms of the way we think through things in the design process. It’s a lot of conscious decisions for many small details throughout the entire show, on the design level yes, but also on the care of the shop floors. And the question that was raised in my mind, particularly towards the design process, honestly extends also into personal, more solo work where that idea of the idea comes more onto you. How much does that end up coming across? I would say there are going to be elements that mean something to you but nothing to another person, but at lot of this is done for myself or even for those one or two people that will resonate especially strongly with the work I have created even if that is not widespread.

Elly Lieu Wolhardt said...

Livestreaming is a growing, very quickly growing industry. At the height of the pandemic, livestreaming accounted for 24% of consumed digital media in the United States. For me, the largest selling point for it is definitely the accessibility part of it. I watched a streamed performance of Preludes, performed by Southwark Playhouse in spring 2021. I was at home, I was a little depressed, and living in Hong Kong, there was no conceivable way that I could attend that kind of performance in person, which took place in London. However, because they made it streamable, I bought a virtual ticket and ‘attended’ from my room in a different continent. Theatre has greatly lacked in this aspect. As an industry built on elitism and exclusivity, it makes sense, as sad as it is, that many, especially on a larger scale, do not want to embrace livestreaming.

Owen Sahnow said...

I’m kind of surprised that the article is predicting theater’s will continue live-streaming. I think the amazing thing that is created in a live show is lost on the stream and it makes sense just to write straight for screen. The production realism of theater and therefore streamed theater is most definitely below that of movies and television because those mediums can go for totally realistic so I’m unclear why people would choose streamed theater (live or prerecorded) over movies and/or television. “Streaming” with respect to video games does make sense to me to some extent because the games are a digital medium and so people are watching it in a digital medium. I definitely didn't know that AOC played video games specifically among-us and that she streamed on twitch. I’m not 100% clear on why she’d need to do that. Hopefully we will soon decide that we can fully return to the theater and I think we’re almost there.