Broadening Broadway

And now, Broadway, coming to a movie theater near you.

Wait a minute. Broadway - in a movie theater? Isn't one of the main properties of live theater that it's not a movie?

Well, these days, yes and no. This weekend through Tuesday, Broadway's current Tony-winning best musical - Memphis - is playing in about 530 cinemas throughout America, including 10 screens here, and it's not some Hollywood version. It's the actual show, taped in high definition with six cameras over a series of performances from the Shubert Theatre stage, where it's in its 670th performance Sunday.

Taking a cue from screened sporting events, concerts, and mostly from the unbridled success of New York's Metropolitan Opera Company - a weekend fixture at many movie theaters - live theater itself is going to the movies.

It has obvious benefits for consumers - even Philadelphians, a 90-minute ride away from real-life, reach-out-and-touch-it Broadway: Memphis at the movies will cost you $20, one-fourth the average Broadway ticket, and you don't have to go far to see it. For movie-house operators, on-screen theater means even more new content to put audiences into downtime seats and bring in additional revenue.

For show producers who depend on real bodies at a single venue when the curtain rises, film-house exposure is just that - a branding device and a potential for international audiences, plus another revenue stream. Although arrangements vary, exhibitors and producers often split cinema box-office receipts 50-50, and theater artists are paid extra by the producers.

Live theater wouldn't be taking this route if it weren't for the Metropolitan Opera, whose nine cinema simulcasts last season sold 2.4 million tickets, grossed $48 million, and put a net profit of $8 million into the opera company's coffers.

Bruce Brandwen, a television entrepreneur, first tested the idea of major live shows on the big screen a decade ago, but was ahead of the curve. The avid following for the Met "revived the idea, and Bruce talked with Broadway producers," says Don Roy King, a longtime TV director and former Philadelphian who directed The Mike Douglas Show here, as well as the current capture of Memphis for big screens.