Growing up close to a hub like New York City, I have always been a fan of live theatre and nothing beats taking a quick train ride to the city to see a show with friends and family. However, in recent years, my friends and I have been able to see our favorite musicals and plays in a different sort of theater — a movie theater.
As Broadway makes its way to the big screen, I have noticed a change in the people surrounding us in the audience. Not only are we accompanied by fellow theatre connoisseurs, we’re now joined by theatre newcomers, including those who may have never had an interest in Broadway before or who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to see a live show.
What’s happening in these theaters is not just a coincidence. It reflects a broader shift in how people are discovering Broadway. In recent years, stage productions have been steadily making their way onto screens, reentering popular culture not through the traditional route but through box office weekends and streaming platforms. These on-screen versions generally take two forms: full movie-musical remakes such as “Wicked,” “Mean Girls” or “Dear Evan Hansen,” and “proshots,” or filmed captures of the stage version, such as “Hamilton” or “Newsies.” Together, on-screen adaptations like these have opened the doors of Broadway to far wider audiences than physical theaters ever could, making these productions more accessible than previously possible.
While I am lucky to have grown up near New York City, many people across the country live nowhere near a theatre hub and traveling so far to enjoy live theatre is impractical. Ticket prices add another barrier, with the average cost of a Broadway ticket in the 2024-2025 season sitting at $129.12 . For many, regular attendance is unattainable.
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that “Hamilton” blew up when it was released on streaming back in 2020 or when it debuted in movie theaters for its 10th anniversary this September. The film gave viewers the ability to see one of the most expensive shows currently on Broadway, with average ticket prices around $175, for the far more accessible cost of a Disney+ subscription or a movie ticket.
Wider access also fuels social media fandom because if more people can see the show, more people can talk about it and create with it online. Broadway-related choreography trends, soundtrack edits and POV jokes, like the recent “Best of Wives and Best of Women” Hamilton trend on TikTok, bring levels of digital engagement to Broadway that have never been experienced before.
But accessibility alone is only a small part of the larger story. Broadway is also reentering pop culture as these adaptations become cultural events in their own right. Take, for example, the recent film adaptation of Steven Schwartz’s “Wicked,” the second part of which was just released on Nov. 21.
Wicked has become a full-scale pop culture moment, attracting theatre fans and non-fans alike. The songs and dances are all over TikTok, and the press tour generated many memeable moments among the star-studded cast. Furthermore, the merchandise is everywhere — you can wear Wicked deodorant, wash your clothes in Wicked detergent and drink Wicked matcha. This represents a level of cultural saturation beyond that of any single live-theatre production.
Thus, these on-screen adaptations are not just attracting new, larger audiences but reshaping what it means to be a theatre fan. Before the rising popularity of these film adaptations, being a theatre fan meant listening to the cast album, going to a live performance and collecting a Playbill. Now, however, there is a rising number of fans whose first exposure to a musical is the movie or proshot, not the show itself — and that shift sparks tensions.
Many theatre purists take issue with the fact that film adaptations tend to change aspects of the show to better fit the movie medium, like altering lyrics and pacing and adding or removing songs or dialogue. Even proshots face their own backlash, with the claim that the recording takes away from the electricity of an in-person audience. To these more traditional fans, lovers of these new film adaptations are somehow “less legitimate,” effectively gatekeeping the theatre fandom to only those who can afford to see a live performance.
However, these purists completely miss the point. Pop culture thrives when more people have access to it, and Broadway is no exception. Film adaptations are not replacing live theatre, but simply opening the door to people who never had access to it in the first place. And sure, some of these film versions may be different from the original version, but they are simply that — different. This does not make them inherently worse than the original Broadway version.
More fans mean longer-lasting shows, along with greater cultural relevance. And many of these new fans who are first introduced to a show through a film adaptation go on to pursue live theatre in any capacity they can once they establish their fandom, whether that be through regional tours and school productions or booking a flight to New York.
In the end, bringing Broadway to cinemas doesn’t diminish its magic — it expands the circle of people who get to feel it. And if fans of these film adaptations eventually become live theatre fans, that is something to celebrate, not resist. Broadway has always survived by opening itself to new audiences and finding unique ways to share its story. In today’s world, that means bringing Broadway to movie theaters and streaming services — a change we must embrace to keep the art form thriving for generations to come.
Danica Lyktey, a sophomore double-majoring in psychology and philosophy, politics and law, is a Pipe Dream opinions intern.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.