Childcare costs, accessibility needs, geography, ticket price—there are many reasons folks can’t get to the theatre. The pandemic locked us all out for a while, but as theatres began to reopen, so did a new option: live-streamed theatre. Cost has always been a barrier for this workaround, as it can run up to $3 million to capture and simulcast a commercial production. That’s where the League of Live Stream Theater came in.
“Streaming is a lousy business model for a for-profit company,” said Oren Michels, who co-founded the league with Jim Augustine. “You can’t make enough money doing it, cover all your costs, get money to the theatres, and have investors have a rational return on capital. But doing it as a nonprofit could make sense. There are stakeholders who believe that this should exist, who could fund it.”
Michels first collaborated with Augustine, then the COO of Zuckerberg Media, to live-stream Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s from New York’s Second Stage in 2022. With their experience in theatre and tech, Michels and Augustine created a model in which the league takes on the streaming costs for nonprofits, lowering the barrier to entry. Once the production recovers its budget, the theatre and LOLST split any proceeds 70/30. If a show does not earn out, the expenses are shared on a pro rata basis.
After securing funding from multiple foundations, including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the league streamed another Second Stage show, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Between Riverside and Crazy. Since then, they have collaborated with a dozen regional theatres and counting, including Hedgerow Theatre Company, Two River Theater, Wilma Theater, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. With a goal of bringing live theatre to audiences around the globe, LOLST has sold 12,000 tickets and reached audiences in 50 states and 40 countries. Clyde’s even simulcast to the veteran’s unit at Rikers Island. According to their form 990, in 2022, LOLST brought in $750,000 in revenue.
Still, the league wants to be clear: It’s not a video-on-demand platform. At-home viewers purchase a ticket for a performance, usually priced to match the most affordable seat in the theatre, and watch the live show online.
“We’re expanding the size of the theatre; we’re not creating a competitive product,” Michels said. Now, with unions across the field adopting streaming provisions, the second-best seat in the house might be at home.
Alexandra Pierson (she/her) is the former associate editor of American Theatre.