How to Stream Broadway's Smokey Joe's Cafe - The Lost Archive

While over 150 Broadway productions were filmed to date, a sizeable portion of them has either only managed to reach agreements for very limited releases or got lost forever due to expired distribution rights.

From one-night cinema showings to limited TV airings, our Lost Archive looks at all the shows that spent millions on being professionally filmed - but have been long lost. We detail the history of each production and try to understand the reasoning behind the limited release, and ultimately try to locate the lost recordings.

This week we're looking at the 1995 Broadway hit Smokey Joe's Cafe:

Based on the rock and roll and rhythm and blues songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Smokey Joe's Cafe opened on Broadway in 1995 and is considered to be the most successful (and longest running) musical revue in Broadway history. 

Showcasing nearly 40 hits of the pair, the musical has had several notable productions since its original run and was also recently revived Off-Broadway by the original producers.

Smokey Joe's Cafe was a unique experience when it opened in 1995 - the revue had no unifying theme or any dialogue, and simply featured a cast of nine that went through 39 hits one after the other.

The original production included songs such as "Jailhouse Rock," "On Broadway," "Love Potion #9," "Poison Ivy," "Yakety Yak," "Charlie Brown," and "Stand by Me".

Following a short premiere in Los Angeles in 1994, the Broadway production opened at the Virgina Theatre (now The August Wilson), directed by Jerry Zaks. The opening night cast included Ken Ard, Adrian Bailey, Brenda Braxton, Victor Trent Cook, B. J. Crosby, Pattie D'Arcy Jones, DeLee Lively, Frederick B. Owens, and Michael Park - most of which returned to the show to film the live capture in 2000.

While New York critics gave the show a mixed reception (with Ben Brantley of The New York Times famously saying "the performers are simply singing into space without any ostensible reason for being there"), the show was nominated for 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical and opened the awards show that year with the hit "On Broadway".

The show managed to fill the medium-sized Virginia Theatre to near full capacity during its five-year run, thanks mostly to repeated stunt casting. Artists that joined the production included Ben E. King, Pam Tillis, Gladys Knight, Tony Orlando, Lou Rawls, Gloria Gaynor, and Rick Springfield.

Around the time of the Broadway closing, BTN (Broadway Television Network), a Pay-per-view initiative by Broadway Online and producer Bruce Brandwen was shopping around for Broadway musicals to film for their first season.

Originally set to capture between 6 to 12 shows each year, BTN only managed to film 3 shows during its short-lived operation: Jekyll and Hyde the Musical (starring David Hasselhoff), the Sondheim revue Putting it Together, and Smokey Joe's Cafe's final Broadway performance (years later, the production company also filmed Memphis the Musical).

Being the first musical filmed by the new network, BTN was disappointed with the viewing figures the show received and decided to rebroadcast the musical again in 2001. The initiative eventually closed the following year, with BTN selling the distribution rights to its musicals to various platforms - one of them being HBO which signed a deal in 2003 to air the musical on the network for two years.

Distribution rights were also sold to GoodTimes Entertainment, and years later to Image Entertainment, both of which released the musical on VHS and DVD.

How to watch Broadway's "Smokey Joe's Cafe" today?

While the musical was widely available to purchase on DVD in the early 2000s, the DVD was discontinued by both GoodTimes Entertainment and Image Entertainment in 2012.

The musical was added to the BroadwayHD platform in September 2019 along with all other Broadway Worldwide titles but was removed when Chapman Roberts, creator of the vocal arrangements of the show, sued Broadway Worldwide, Amazon Digital Services, and BroadwayHD.

Roberts claims copyright infringement and is seeking credit and compensation for the filmed production and all subsequent stage incarnations. 

While distribution rights for the musical expired and were not renewed by Image Entarintiment, Smokey Joe's Cafe can still be watched today - old copies of the widely circulated DVD release can be purchased from third-party sellers.

The BroadwayHD stream was taken down shortly after the Roberts lawsuit was filed and will likely not return to the streaming platform until the case is resolved in court.