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Together, Apart: Liveness, Eventness, and Streaming Shakespearean Performance

Abstract:Over the past several years, Shakespearean performance has been reaching audiences through a new trend: live theatrical performances streamed digitally to remote audiences. Recently, two such programs—the National Theatre's NT Live and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Schools' Broadcasts—have utilized streaming technologies to expand the reach of Shakespearean (and non-Shakespearean) performance in attempts both to maintain current audiences and to attract new ones. Though the two programs each target different audiences (NT Live broadly attracts theatre-goers in the UK and abroad, while the RSC's Schools' Broadcasts specifically target Key Stage 3 and 4 students in the UK), both employ digital technologies to provide audiences with access to the live performance event while eschewing their physical presence at the performance site. Since definitions of liveness often rely on the audience's physical presence to witness the theatrical event, has Shakespearean performance begun to move beyond such definitions? Streaming does allow institutions to bring theatrical performances to remote audiences live (or seemingly live), but the ways in which remote audiences experience the performance event fundamentally differs from the experiences of on-site audiences. While the differences between these two ways of experiencing Shakespearean performances may not be as separate or divisive as they once seemed, the success of programs such as NT Live and the Schools' Broadcasts signals a shift in our conceptions of liveness. I argue these programs represent new models where eventness, rather than a traditional definition of liveness, becomes a defining characteristic of the theatrical experience.