Kinky Boots Will Stream Online While Running Off-Broadway

Kinky Boots is one of our favorite pro-shots, and will now join an exclusive club of shows you can both stream online and watch live on Broadway.

While not very common for Broadway musicals, multiple shows over the years have been released in cinemas or made available to stream while still running on Broadway or in London's West End.

Back in 2007, Legally Blonde the Musical set a rare, if not unprecedented step when producers struck a deal with MTV to broadcast the show in its entirety a total of six times while the musical was still playing on Broadway.

While many productions were filmed on Broadway prior to Legally Blonde, such as Into the Woods and Sunday in the Park with George, none aired while the show was still playing on Broadway. A concert version of Les Miserables aired during the run of the hit musical but was not a fully staged production.

The initial broadcast managed to reach nearly 13 million viewers, which could've filled Broadway's Palace Theatre 6,500 times - that's almost 5.5 years of sold-out crowds.

Thanks to the great brand recognition the show gained from the multiple MTV airings, Legally Blonde went on to play a highly successful US tour and opened in the West End where it played for more than 3 years.

In 2010, Memphis the Musical followed the same path and marked the first time a Tony Award-winning musical was broadcast to cinemas while still playing on Broadway.

Memphis was a rarity - a Tony-Award winner for Best Musical that struggled to find an audience due to its original story and lack of recognizable star power.

Unlike Legally Blonde, Memphis went a step further and was released on DVD and Blu-Ray which were later sold both on Broadway and on tour. The show went on to recoup its entire Broadway investment and had much success in London.

While both Legally Blonde and Memphis were seeking more brand recognition through those releases, the trend shifted in recent years when several captures of Broadway mega-hits got released by popular streaming services.

The first to start the trend was, of course, Disney's Hamilton, which was smartly filmed by producers while most of the original cast was still part of the production back in 2016.

Released during the pandemic, the Hamilton film only fueled ticket sales for the musical's multiple productions around the world while still serving as one of Disney Plus' most popular original movies.

The most recent example is Broadway's Come From Away, which shifted plans from filming a full-on feature film to a pro-shot recording of the Broadway production.

Filmed during the pandemic, the show was released through Apple TV+ last year, with the musical still playing both on Broadway and in London.

Kinky Boots was filmed live in 2019 during the show's West End run by Liberator Film Services (From Here to Eternity, An American in Paris, The Wind in the Willows). The filmed show was released after both the Broadway and West End productions closed, putting the musical in a unique position where a pro-shot is widely available when a major revival is about to open in New York.

The captured performance is streaming online and can also be purchased on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The off-Broadway revival of Kinky Boots is set to open next week at Stage 42 and will star Callum Francis as Lola (who previously portrayed the role in London, Australia, and Broadway), Christian Douglas (Pretty Woman US Tour, Arena Stage: Newsies) as Charlie Price, and Danielle Hope (The Wizard of Oz, Les Misérables) as Lauren.

The success of the new Kinky Boots revival is definitely something many producers are looking into - would a filmed release of the original production help ticket sales, or would audiences prefer watching the show at home?