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CNN Live Saturday
Broadway Does TV
Aired June 02, 2001 - 13:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: These days, you can easily pay $80 for a ticket to a Broadway show. Certainly, that's not cheap, but will theater fans pay $20 to see that same show at home on their TV set or in a local movie theater? The Broadway Television Network recently broadcast a musical version of "Jekyll and Hyde," starring David Hasselhoff. It's Broadway for the masses.
Bruce Brandwen is the man who brought that show to the Pay-per- View television audience. And he is with us from New York. Hi, Bruce. Glad to have you join us.
BRUCE BRANDWEN, BROADWAY TV NETWORK: Thanks, Donna. How are you?
KELLY: Real good, thanks. Hope you're the same. I know you've done two. How did they go and how was "Jekyll and Hyde?"
BRANDWEN: "Jekyll and Hyde" was terrific because it was the first Broadway show to be simultaneously telecast to Pay-per-View audiences in South America, the United States and Canada and in 7 digital cinema movie theaters here in the United States. So it was a rather large undertaking, but we were really happy the audience reaction to it.
KELLY: Well, what was the audience reaction?
BRANDWEN: The survey results that we got back were actually overwhelmingly positive; 99 percent of the respondents said that they had a good to excellent experience, and 98 percent said that they would do it again. Considering most people go to movie theater and pay anywhere from $6 to now in New York City $10 and we were charging $20, we were really rather surprised that there was not a price issue with most of the issue who came.
KELLY: You know, there are some who will say, Bruce, "Oh, I don't know. It's the thrill of being there sitting in the audience, having them up live on the stage there." And they may not be as interested. What do you say to those folks?
BRANDWEN: Well, there is no replacement for the live experience. And that's true in professional sports. It's true with opera, ballet. And it's also true with Broadway. However, for a large number of people, who because of seat capacity or because of geography, they can't get to see it live. So we can provide the next best thing, which is a terrific two dimensional, terrific sound, terrific picture now that we're doing it in high definition. And that is -- that's really the difference between the live performance and what we're providing.
KELLY: Well, and that's right. And other folks will say rather than not see it at all, they would rather, especially with some of these new television sets and the way that you can produce it, you know, have some friends over and watch it on the new TV and really have a ball.
BRANDWEN: Exactly. And I think if people get to see it on television or in a digital cinema environment and they like what they have seen, the next time that show comes to town on a tour or the next time those folks come to Broadway, they might be inclined to want to see the real thing and see it live.
KELLY: How do the people on Broadway feel about it?
BRANDWEN: Well, we've now done two shows. We're going to release our third, which is a show called "Putting It Together" starring Carol Burnett and Bronson Pinchot and George Hearn, Ruthie Henschel and John Barriman. So far, we've gotten an extremely good reaction from the Broadway community from the theater owners who are actually shareholders of our company, to people like Cameron Macintosh, Tom Vertel, Richard Frankel, some of the major producers on Broadway, SFX, they've all been extremely supportive, as have been the performers who were rather skeptical about how they would look on television given what they normally do in a live stage environment.
KELLY: Yeah, well, TV and PBS have been doing more and more of that all the time. And you told us what was next because I was curious about that. When does the next production come up then?
BRANDWEN: We're hoping that we'll do "Putting It Together" sometime this year. And then we're looking at a number of shows, some of which have not even opened yet on Broadway that we'll be doing next year.
KELLY: OK, Bruce Brandwen, who's the CEO of Broadway Television Network. Just great to talk to you. Thanks very much.
BRANDWEN: Thank you, Donna.
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