New York, NY (Top40 Charts) By making theater available for people to affordably stream online the same way they stream other media, we're reminding them that theater is just as relevant and engaging as the content they're already watching.
Stagecloud, a new national theater company and streaming service, is among the first in the world to combine professional live theater with global online distribution. Inspired by popular streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, Stagecloud will make all of its plays available for subscribers online, along with additional show-related content including music, podcasts, and interviews with industry leaders from theater, television, and film.
Founded by Sean Douglass, playwright and Associate Curator for the national arts and politics website The Clyde Fitch Report, Stagecloud's mission is to make theater more accessible and affordable to general audiences. "Theater is an over two billion dollar industry, and many of our most popular movies and TV shows are written by playwrights," explains Douglass, "but theater still remains a niche form of entertainment in our culture. By making theater available for people to affordably stream online the same way they stream other media, we're reminding them that theater is just as relevant and engaging as the content they're already watching."
Stagecloud employs the talents of a diverse team of artists from Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York, along with several international contacts. Its first production, which runs August 7-16, 2015 at Milwaukee's Tenth Street Theatre, is Hyperreality Show: A Few Plays on the Media and Popular Culture. Written by Douglass, the production is a series of comedic and intellectual short plays that each comment on a familiar media genre. Among the plays are
Fairytale Ending, in which a fairytale-esque prince and princess confront deep-seeded marital problems, and A Group of People Have a Conversation About Science and Religion on the Internet, in which a vitriolic conversation from a YouTube comments section is reenacted verbatim onstage. The plays will become available to a worldwide audience online soon after the live production closes, and will be available to watch collectively as a full-length feature or individually at the viewer's convenience. All filming will be handled by Chicago's premiere theater videography company The Stage Channel.
Also currently available on Stagecloud is the original music for Hyperreality Show, as well as numerous podcasts, videos, and articles covering the greater industry. This bonus material includes conversations with writers such as
Martin Zimmerman, playwright and screenwriter for Netflix's upcoming series Narcos, and Frederick Mensch, playwright and screenwriter for the film Nightingale, recently produced by Brad Pitt for HBO. As with traditional regional theaters, Stagecloud will be producing a season of several plays per year, so between these plays and the additional material, audiences can expect a wide, growing library of streaming content to enjoy.
Intentionally priced to make cost as little a barrier as possible, Stagecloud is currently available to subscribers for a free one month trial, and after at a small monthly rate of $2.99. To sign up or learn more about upcoming productions, audiences can visit https://www.stagecloudtheater.com. For further inquiries, contact Artistic
Director Sean Douglass at info(at)stagecloudtheater(dot)com.
About Stagecloud
Stagecloud is a theater company and online streaming platform for plays. Founded in 2015 and overseen by a team of artists and contributors from New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee, it is one of the world's first companies providing digital distribution of live theater.
