EXCLUSIVE: Streaming of theater productions has existed for years now, and it became a crucial way for talent and fans to keep the heartbeat of the medium alive during the depths of Covid.
But a new initiative, Virtual Stage Lab, is aiming for a goal beyond video views or social media clout. It is positioning itself as a digital meeting ground for investors, creatives and theater fans alike, providing an accessible, low-cost alternative to traditional readings. The unwieldy nature and fraught logistics of readings, which are the conventional way to showcase new work, turn them into what one of VSL’s co-founders dryly called “29-hour zombie walks.”
The trio behind VSL is Tony nominee Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre), Broadway bookwriter David Goldsmith (Motown The Musical), and performer-producer Melody Munitz, 25, whose credits include the national tour of The Addams Family.
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The co-founders see considerable upside in not only removing cost and other hassles from the traditional method. It is bringing a SAG-approved contract for performers and a free website to the marketplace.
“As opposed to that sort of very limited moment of chance at readings that cost tens of thousands of dollars,” Goldsmith (he of the “zombie” line) told Deadline, “there was a way to use the tools that are now available in technology and filming to create the opportunity for not only a developmental tool that you can look at what you have and see what needs to be fixed, but also a promotional tool that you can use to attract investors, producers, licensers, et cetera to your work.”
Virtual Stage Lab thus far has five shows in its portfolio. The roster includes Ribbit, which was recently acquired by Uproar Theatricals for licensing; My Improbable Sisters, starring Jasmine Amy Rogers (nominated for a Tony earlier this year for BOOP! The Musical); pandemic-era musical dramedy Five Women At An Airport; and immersive short-play collection Grief Dialogues. They are available on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as well as http://www.VirtualStageLab.com.
Gordon, who first experimented with streaming a decade ago with Daddy Long Legs, an Off Broadway show for which he wrote the music and lyrics, said he knew demand was there for a more “democratized” form of theater. “I think we’ve solved a problem that the industry didn’t even know needed to be solved,” he said.
Streaming versions of shows can create digital-first assets, something that a growing number of Broadway success stories have been able to do. TikTok and YouTube have enabled shows like Be More Chill, Six and & Juliet to rocket to Broadway from humble beginnings.
“Not only are you spending less money, but you’re getting so much more bang for that buck because you actually have something that you can observe, show, share, and then, in terms of your other question, you can begin to brand it on social media,” Gordon added.
Munitz agreed. “I think we are in such an age where having content is so crucial,” she said, “whether you are a fan, a high school theater kid who wants to become a supporter of a particular musical that you find out about, or a billion-dollar producer and you’re wanting to help get something to the next stage.”
The devastation of Covid, which shuttered the entire theater industry for an entire year, with the recovery taking years more, informed the creation of VSL, Goldsmith said. The co-founders and their collaborators, he said, asked each other, “How are we going to rise above, not only a broken industry, but a glut of content? And no one else was filming their stuff in a way that made it accessible and made it available to rise above the din and the clamor and the glut of content to be noticed and seen.”
Broadway veteran Alexandra Silber, who directed Five Women At An Airport, said working with VSL was eye-opening. It gave her “the sense that we were making something not-yet-conceived of.” Theatrical work traveling this path can be “nurtured, uplifted, respected, then produced, recorded, shared, monetized, and democratized for all to benefit. It’s the next wave of how we participate in theatrical storytelling.”