BroadwayHD, a streaming video service for musicals and plays, simultaneously sounds like the best and worst idea. An affordable, convenient live theater streaming service could expose you to performances that you’d never see in person. However, the performances are meant to be experienced live, and they lose some of that spark as recordings. Still, archiving art is always a good thing. BroadwayHD has a few issues, but it admirably serves its stagebound audience.
What Can You Watch on BroadwayHD?
If you love all things theater, BroadwayHD’s library has something for you. The catalog features more than 300 productions to peruse. Watch classic musicals like Bye Bye Birdie, Into the Woods, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and the slightly less horrifying version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. BroadwayHD even has Hollywood adaptations of beloved musicals like Fiddler on the Roof, Nine, and The Phantom of the Opera.
You’re not limited to Broadway musicals, though; BroadwayHD is the home for many stage performance types. For example, you can watch Shakespeare plays, concerts, and ballets. Thanks to partnerships with the BBC, Lincoln Center, and PBS, the library has a wholesome, public access quality. It aspires to bring the joys of performing arts to everyone. Seeing A Doll’s House, Buried Child, and Death of a Salesman on the app brought me back to my film school days of hearing what all the theater majors were up to.
That’s not to say the library is perfect. While you’ll find some Black art, a few August Wilson plays would also be nice. Theater in general also tends to skew towards older crowds, and it loves reviving the same shows for decades. In addition, you won’t see the most recent hits, since there’s no chance that new Broadway productions would offer streams while selling tickets for live performances. One of the newer BroadwayHD musicals I saw—Allegiance, starring George Takei—is from five years ago. WarnerMedia decided to release new movies simultaneously in theaters and on the HBO Max streaming service, and that allowed far more people to safely see current blockbusters. BroadwayHD might benefit from a move like that. However, many in the film industry viewed the HBO Max model as destructive for the movie theater business. Perhaps it’s better for Broadway’s long-term health to keep current shows exclusive to the live stage.
And just to get this out of the way, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is still a Disney+ exclusive. However, BroadwayHD does have a medley of Disney Broadway hits.
Costs and Platforms
After a seven-day free trial, BroadwayHD costs $12 per month or $130 per year. All subscriptions are ad-free. Beyond purchasing these subscriptions, you can also buy gift cards. While anything is cheaper than scoring front-row seats for the hottest ticket in town, compared to other streaming video services these prices are a bit expensive.
Hulu and Netflix, our Editors’ Choice picks for paid video streaming, both charge $13.99 per month for far more robust libraries. In Hulu’s case, you get the whole Disney bundle including Disney+ and ESPN+. Peacock, our free Editors’ Choice pick, provides a great service for nothing at all. BroadwayHD’s focus on a single genre makes it more similar to horror service Shudder or anime service Crunchyroll, but those specialized platforms only cost $6 per month and $8 per month, respectively.
Still, considering how elitist traditional Broadway economics can get, even at these prices BroadwayHD makes theater way more accessible and affordable for everyone. That accessibility also extends to the platforms, where you can watch these performances wherever and whenever you want. BroadwayHD offers apps for web browsers, Android and iOS mobile devices, and streaming media devices like Amazon Firestick, AppleTV, and Roku. It’s not available on video game consoles.
BroadwayHD on the Web and Mobile
On the web, BroadwayHD has a straightforward interface that should be familiar to anyone who has used other streaming video services. I’m not a fan of the green color scheme, but that comes down to taste. The main carousel scrolls through big pictures of highlighted selections, while the space below features long detailed lists, including a list of shows you’re in the middle of watching. While writing this, I browsed through a new category celebrating the late Stephen Sondheim. The top navigation bar has links to your list of favorite picks, the robust help center and legal information, the subscription page and gift card store, and the category list.
BroadwayHD splits its catalog into more than 20 useful categories. You can narrow in on precisely what you want to watch, including Tony Award-winning musicals, Royal Shakespeare Company productions, foreign theater, and documentaries. Before you see Spielberg’s West Side Story, see how the original first came together. Whereas more mainstream streaming video services might shunt off all their musicals (like that awful Cinderella musical on Amazon Prime Video) into one tab, BroadwayHD showcases all the variety within this one genre.
Each individual listing includes information about the plot, genre, actors, producer, and director. You can also watch a trailer. Press the heart button to add that show to your list of favorites, and then scroll through related shows.
The player itself is basic, but functional. You can instantly rewind to a video’s beginning, and turn on picture-in-picture. Even though “HD” is right in the name, BroadwayHD is a bit vague when it comes to video quality. While you won’t mistake these videos for up-close, live performances, the shows are obviously in clear HD. However, you can’t see or adjust precisely what resolution they output at. I suspect this is because many shows, particularly the older ones, are locked at certain quality levels. BroadwayHD does support 4K among its newer material.
There’s no hard limit on how many devices you can stream to simultaneously, and I had no issues streaming shows to my laptop and Android phone. That said, BroadwayHD says internet bandwidth may affect performance. In general, I enjoyed smooth playback over my home Wi-Fi connection (60Mbps download).
BroadwayHD’s mobile version looks like a smaller, denser version of the web version. You’ll find the same functionality, categories, and video player. On mobile, you can share links of what you’re watching to social media. Unfortunately, offline mobile downloads are nowhere to be found. That’s one of the best features a streaming video service mobile app, like HBO Max or Editors’ Choice pick VRV, can offer for truly letting you watch content anywhere.
Accessibility and Parental Controls
Seasoned theater actors perform broadly and sing loudly and clearly enough so that even folks in the cheap seats can understand what’s happening. Even still, it’s nice to know exactly what’s being said. Fortunately, BroadwayHD lets you turn on and customize English subtitles, so you can change the size, font, color, and window opacity.
Broadway doesn’t have a formalized age rating system the way movies and video games do, and BroadwayHD has no parental controls. You’ll just need to research individual shows to determine how appropriate they are for your family. The catalog has a category for family friendly hits, but other shows feature more adult themes, and there are several R-rated movies. You won’t find mature musicals like Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, or Hair, so that’s at least one nude scene you won’t need to worry about.
BroadwayHD and VPN
VPNs remain a vital tool for staying safe and secure online. However, because they let you change your virtual location to another country, streaming video services tend to dislike them. International licensing deals mean that some video libraries are only meant to be viewed in certain territories, and VPNs blow all that up.
Fortunately, BroadwayHD doesn’t care where you say you are. The service still worked just fine while I connected to ProtonVPN servers in the US and abroad from my Windows test device. This ups the convenience factor, as viewers who live continents away from Broadway or the West End can now easily enjoy these shows. Just note that BroadwayHD, like any streaming video service, may eventually decide to block VPN traffic in the future.
Give My Regards to BroadwayHD
Entertainment, just like everything else, was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although movies and TV shows eventually resumed production with the proper safety protocols, live theater had no choice but to stay dormant. Its defining trait, the shared transportive magic of people together in an audience watching fellow humans perform on stage, just couldn’t happen. BroadwayHD gave us the next best thing.
Live theater now lives again, with new shows now opening under rigorous safety guidelines. Still, BroadwayHD is the easiest and best way to stream nothing but musicals and plays in your home. If you’re looking for a video streaming service with more variety and mass appeal, Editors’ Choice picks Hulu and Netflix cost roughly the same as BroadwayHD, while Editors’ Choice pick Peacock is free.
