National Theatre Live brings the stage’s best to movie screens

National Theatre Live brings the best of live theater to movie screens around the world, so why isn’t this remarkable experience in more cinemas?

There’s something special and irreplaceable about theater—something that National Theatre Live makes easily accessible through movie theaters nationwide. And chances are you’ve never heard about it.

For the last ten years, the National Theatre has worked tirelessly to bring British productions to a wider audience, using movies as their platform. They capture each play on film, with every process tailored to that specific production, and air that video in almost 300 movie theaters. But it ought to be 3,000 or more.

The stage has become something of a lost art. We all know of Broadway and London’s West End, but so many people have never seen a play. In part, that’s because movies and TV shows are more readily accessible; just a click of a button and you can get one on demand. It’s easier to turn on a TV show than go out to the theater.

Then there’s the rising cost of ticket prices; if you want great seats to a Broadway show, you might spend hundreds of dollars. For example, I paid a little over $180 to see To Kill A Mockingbird a few months ago; now, after the show’s Tony nominations, the seat in the row in front of mine is going for $400. And that’s not the secondary market—that’s directly from the venue.

National Theatre Live solves both those problems. Through NT Live, anyone can see a play just by going to their local movie house—and tickets will cost you about $15-20, depending on the prices set by your local box office.

It’s something that everyone needs to see. While films and TV shows are great, the stage is an actor’s medium; you haven’t seen the full extent of any actor’s talent until you’ve seen them on stage. There’s a visceral, real, unfiltered quality about stage performances, because there’s no such thing as another take or a second chance. Everyone must be present in the moment, and that includes the audience.

A play is less something you watch, and more something you experience. It’s the purest form of entertainment, and often some of the best performances of someone’s career are the ones on stage. But since they’re live, people don’t usually have the chance to see them again; if you’re not living near the theater, or find out about it later, you’ve missed it forever.

Because NT Live broadcasts are unedited, and shown the same day that they’re filmed, all of that is preserved. It’s as close as one will get to the actual theater experience, without having to get on a plane and fly to England.

Even if you’re not a theater enthusiast—especially if you’re not a theater enthusiast—you still ought to have seen a National Theatre Live broadcast. This is world-class entertainment on your doorstep.

The first NT Live production in 2009 was Phedre, featuring the legendary Dame Helen Mirren and the criminally underrated Dominic Cooper. A few years later, Mirren stunned again playing Queen Elizabeth over her entire adult life in The Audience, written by Peter Morgan (The Queen).

The 2019 season has included a jaw-dropping production of All About Eve, starring Lily James (Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again) as the not so innocent Eve Harrington and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Fall) as iconic actress Margo Channing. Monica Dolan won an Olivier Award, the British equivalent of a Tony Award, for playing Margo’s longtime friend Karen Richards.

The play was directed beautifully by Ivo van Hove, who’s been earning plenty of buzz for his Broadway version of Network that just won Bryan Cranston another Tony. People could have seen another of van Hove’s unique, thought-provoking productions just by getting a movie ticket.

Ditto for Sam Mendes; he won a Tony this month for directing The Ferryman, but his The Lehman Trilogy is being shown through National Theatre Live in July.

Other shows the National Theatre has made available include One Man, Two Guvnors, which won James Corden a Tony; All My Sons with Sally Field, Bill Pullman and Victoria star Jenna Coleman; and two productions starring Benedict Cumberbatch—Frankenstein and Hamlet. And that’s just naming a few.

These are the best of the best, in ways that audiences have never seen them before. All About Eve feels different than the film, thanks to Ivo van Hove incorporating technology in the same way he did with Network. And it’s wonderfully acted by the whole cast, from the award-winners to the supporting players like Rhashan Stone as Karen’s husband Lloyd.

The Lehman Trilogy utilizes a unique set, where the audience can see things move as the business that the Lehman Brothers built is poised to crash. The three actors at its core—Adam Godley, Ben Miles and Simon Russell Beale—play generations of characters. And if you missed The Audience, you missed Helen Mirren delivering a remarkable evolution of Queen Elizabeth through decades of meetings with her Prime Ministers.

There’s a wealth of talent and entertainment on offer here, which makes it all the more frustrating that National Theatre Live hasn’t found the audience it deserves in America. While a fair amount of movie theaters show it, not every theater does. Reading Cinemas just made the decision to dump the program from their calendar in June, despite several major broadcasts on the horizon.

That’s because arts on the big screen will never be as popular as the next blockbuster. There won’t be as many people lining up for a play as there will for a Disney movie. But what people like those Reading executives don’t quite notice is that there’s overlap between those two audiences. There are people who will go to an Avengers movie, and still make time to see the guy who plays Doctor Strange in Hamlet. And there could be more of them if theater chains supported NT Live the way that it deserves.

The audience for theater is smaller because of the aforementioned accessibility, and movie theaters have the power to make these plays accessible. The only way that audience grows the way that movie chains want is for viewers to find them. If people can’t find these brilliant plays, then of course they won’t have tickets.

While movies are fantastic, there should be a certain responsibility to make sure we don’t forget other forms of the arts—particularly the one that acting started with, when Thespis was the first actor in a written play during the sixth century BC.

National Theatre Live is an iconic British institution doing its best to preserve theater and to give it a wider life. It’s offering audiences pure magic, in the form of excellently written and directed plays performed by some of the best actors in the world. People should get out and support it as much as the National Theatre is supporting the stage. Because once you see an NT Live production, you will be a fan for life.

For more information on National Theatre Live and to find an upcoming show near you, visit their website. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.