Theatre and Concerts

Over 800 hours of streaming video of the world’s most important plays, documentaries, interviews, and instructional materials.

• Of the 629 videos included, 258 are performances. If looking for performances only, filter by Content Type to Performances.
• The remaining 371 videos are documentaries on 20th century theatre history, instructional materials, and interviews with directors, designers, writers, and actors providing a behind-the-scenes look at the performances.

Features:

• Content can be filtered by subject, person, publisher, content type, language and release date. Watch this Searching and Filtering video for more information.
• Closed captioning for all videos.
• Searchable and scrollable transcripts. Watch this Scrolling and Searchable Transcripts Video for more information.
• Ability to make clips. (You need to create an account for this feature.) Watch this Clip-Making Video and Illustrated Steps for Creating Clips Document for more information.
• Ability to share clips via Permalink or Embed Code.

Access Theatre in Video  (Everywhere for Vancouver residents)

The National Theatre Collection is a streaming video collection of 30 performances produced by UK’s National Theatre since 2010. The productions take classic plays and set them in contemporary settings making them more relevant to modern-day audiences.

For each performance, there are excellent supplementary resources to help viewers study every aspect of a play. These include:

• prompt scripts
• costume designs
• costume bibles (all the paperwork used by the costume designer)
• rehearsal insight documents (documents prepared by the director which describe the process of creating, rehearsing and staging each play)

The 30 performances in this collection are:

• Frankenstein (2), A Streetcar Named Desire, Antigone, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Consent, Coriolanus, Dara, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Les Blancs, London Assurance, Macbeth, Medea, One Man, Two Guvnors, Othello, the Moor of Venice, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, Romeo and Juliet, She Stoops to Conquer, Small Island, The Cherry Orchard, The Deep Blue Sea, The Winter's Tale, Translations, Treasure Island, Twelfth Night, or, What You Will, Yerma, wonder.land

Features:

• Closed Captions for all performances.
• Synchronous and searchable scrolling transcripts (read the transcripts while watching the performances).
• Send to Mobile feature making it easier for viewers to access content.
• Clip making tool.
• Visual Table of Contents to visually navigate each performance.
• Playlists with stable URLs.

Access National Theatre Collection (Everywhere for Vancouver residents)

This collection contains high-definition recordings of 26 (and counting) productions by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). All productions have been performed since 2013 when the RSC launched their program Live from Stratford-upon-Avon. These contemporary productions of Shakespeare are designed to bring Shakespeare’s canon to life and “promote a positive experience of Shakespeare for children and young people.”

Each production is accompanied by one or more teacher packs that offer in-depth looks on the making of the production, guide instructors through each story, and provide activities for students.  There are also production stills (photographs) for most productions allowing students to take a closer look - down to the detail of a costume or the lighting of a scene.

Features:

• Synchronous, searchable scrolling transcripts that can double as onscreen transcripts (improving comprehension for students).
• Clip making tool and playlists with stable URLS (making it easier to study particular scenes or monologues).

Access Royal Shakespeare Company Collection (Everywhere for Vancouver residents)

Hailed by the New York Times as “the closest thing to a classical Netflix,” medici.tv is the largest classical music streaming library in the world. It features over 1,800 programs (3,000 original works), including:

•     live concerts and archived historical concerts
•     operas
•     ballets
•     documentaries, artist portraits and educational programs
•     master classes

Each recording is accompanied by a synopsis, cast list, and performers' biographies.

The catalogue can be searched and browsed by composer, performer, musical period, and instrument.

medici.tv streams over 150 live events each year. Replays are usually available for three months after the live stream. To see upcoming live events, click on Calendar in the top right of the medici.tv screen.

For more help, see medici.tv Support.

Access medici.tv (Everywhere for VPL cardholders)