The Show Must Go On(line): Watch Free Broadway Musicals Every Friday

[demmiblue]

With Broadway and performing arts venues across the country shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, live theater is in short supply these days. But theater lovers still have reason to rejoice: Iconic British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is making select musicals from his extensive oeuvre available to watch on YouTube each Friday for the next seven weeks.

Lloyd Webber announced the initiative, dubbed “The Shows Must Go On!,” in a video posted last week. The virtual series kicked off April 3 with the Donny Osmond-led 1999 film adaptation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This Friday’s offering is a 2012 filmed stage version of Jesus Christ Superstar, starring Ben Forster as Jesus, former Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm (also known as Melanie C.) as Mary Magdalene and Tim Minchin as Judas. Future lineups will be announced in “due course,” reports Tim Dams for Variety.

Each feature-length show will begin streaming on YouTube at 2 p.m. EST and remain accessible—free of charge—for the next 48 hours.

“I’m here to tell you that Universal [has] come up with the idea of a whole series now called ‘The Shows Must Go On,’ which is about musicals going from stage to screen,” says Webber in the video announcement.

He notes that the roster of musicals will also include “my disaster musical By Jeeves, and I’m very, very fond of it.” (The show, a musical comedy based on British humorist P.G. Wodehouse’s writings, famously flopped during its initial run, but gained acclaim after undergoing extensive revisions.)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/show-must-go-line-watch-free-broadway-musicals-every-friday-180974640/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia

[Stonepounder]

1. K & R for visibility

Sounds great. Will certainly tune in this afternoon or evening and give it a watch! Thanks for the info!

[demmiblue]

2. First one has gone live: