THEATRE | LIVESTREAMING FEATURE
C E N T R E S TA G E
Theatres and concert halls may be closed for the time being but there are still plenty of ways to enjoy world-class music and staged productions from your sofa. Arusa Qureshi picks a selection of live streams and archive performances to check out
LIVR As the world’s first virtual reality content platform dedicated to theatre, LIVR is a service that you can access from your mobile device. You download the app, subscribe for £5.99 a month, at which point you’ll be sent a free VR headset, and then you’re free to browse the content library at your leisure. Shows you can watch right now include former Edinburgh Fringe hits It’ll Be Alt-Right on the Night, Ladykiller and Woke by Fringe First Award winner Apphia Campbell. SLUNG LOW Slung Low, who run the Leeds cultural community college The Holbeck, are sharing something from their extensive archive on their Twitter account (@SlungLow) every day. The first piece they shared was 15 Minutes Live, their collaboration with Unicorn Theatre which was made last year. It features six new radio plays performed live with an orchestra, with an original musical score composed by Heather Fenoughty.
OPERAVISION The opera streaming platform has a wide range of productions from all over Europe that you can watch for free. Head to operavision.eu to browse, with highlights such as a live version of Opera North’s production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Komische Oper Berlin’s staging of Weinberger’s Spring Storms and Royal Swedish Opera’s Madame Butterfly. THE SHOW MUST GO ONLINE The actor and director Robert Myles is currently hosting weekly readings of Shakespeare plays in the order in which they were written, which are livestreamed for the public on YouTube. The first play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, was broadcast live in March with professional and amateur actors joining in.
GATE THEATRE With the Notting Hill theatre closed, they’ve started hosting Gate Lates live on Twitter (@GateTheatre), which involves a sharing of poetry and storytelling. The first edition was hosted by Dean Atta, with guests Iona Lee, Riwa Saab, Lily Fontaine and more. The theatre is also presently working on making some of their work available online at gatetheatre.co.uk
THE MET Although the Metropolitan Opera is closed until at least the end of the month, the company has been streaming a title from its Live in HD series every evening (11.30pm GMT) from their homepage metopera.org. The videos are available to watch for 20 hours following the stream, with highlights including Puccini’s La Bohème (conducted by Nicola Luisotti) and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (conducted by Valery Gergiev). Audiences can also see footage of what goes on backstage and expert introductions to the works from veterans of the artform such as Renée Fleming and Joyce DiDonato. THEATRE UNCUT UK-based arts organisation Theatre Uncut commission leading and emerging playwrights to create plays that explore political and social issues, which are then released free for anyone to perform anywhere. The company recently released Bubble, a play set entirely on Facebook by award-winning playwright Kieran Hurley. It uses text and emojis to tell the story of the events that follow when a male lecturer calls a female student a slut. Watch it online at theatreuncut.com.
98 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2020