Bootlegs over Broadway: musical theatre (re)productions, digital circulation, and the informal media economy

Abstract

In recent years, the longstanding practice of producing and circulating bootleg recordings of Broadway musicals has escalated as have condemnations of this activity as detrimental to the commercial theatre industry. Drawing on work from media industry studies, this article reframes theatre bootlegging not as a detrimental practice, but as one that may have generative contributions to the theatre industry for its promotional effects. Rather than celebrating such efforts as wholly resistant or co-opted, however, we must understand bootlegging as essentially fraught, staging the inherent tension between the Broadway musical as art and commerce and blurring the distinction between producers and consumers. Critical attention to theatrical bootlegging as a social and cultural practice foregrounds the range of stakeholders in theatre culture as well as the myriad ways that they function as market actors.