Livestreamed Theatre vs Theatre Created for Online Audiences

Livestreamed theatre and theatre created for online audiences are often discussed together because both reach spectators through screens. They are not the same production model. Livestreamed theatre takes an event that is happening in a theatre, studio or other physical site and transmits it, usually live, to remote viewers. Theatre created for online audiences begins with the network as a primary performance condition: the work is written, designed, rehearsed and performed for spectators who are not in the room, and its dramaturgy may depend on cameras, chat, latency, multiple windows or interactive choices.

The distinction is practical rather than semantic. It affects budget, rehearsal, rights, accessibility, documentation and what liveness means. It also affects how a company describes its work to funders and audiences, and how it evaluates success. The two forms can overlap: a livestream can be made with strong online-specific direction, and an online-native production can include a live stage element. But the questions a team asks at the start are different.

The short answer: extension versus design

A useful test is to ask where the performance is primarily designed to happen. If the answer is a physical auditorium, with the online transmission as a secondary delivery channel, the work is closer to livestreamed theatre. If the answer is a networked screen or a distributed online audience, with the physical production serving that online experience, the work is closer to theatre created for online audiences.

In the Second Wave Digital Theatre guidebook, Televisual Theatre is defined as live performances that are livestreamed or live broadcast through a video-based medium online, typically with the option of some audience engagement, such as a live chat. That definition captures an important middle ground: a stage event delivered through video, with online spectators able to respond. It does not by itself tell us whether the work was designed for the screen or simply captured from a stage.

Definitions: two relationships to the stage

Livestreamed theatre: a stage event delivered through video

Livestreamed theatre is a transmission model. A performance occurs at a particular time in a particular place; cameras capture it; an encoding and distribution chain sends it to remote viewers. The audience may watch alone at home, in a cinema, in a classroom or at a festival. The production may use one fixed camera, a multicamera gallery, or a hybrid of broadcast and phone footage. Some livestreams include live chat, polls or post-show discussion; others are one-way broadcasts.

Beatriz Cabur’s taxonomy of digital theatre configurations is useful here because it separates circumstances from configurations. Among the configurations she identifies are Broadcasted Theatre, in which a play is broadcast live in its entirety with cast and technical staff sharing a physical space, and Screened Theatre, in which a recording of a live broadcast is later distributed to cinemas or theatres. The taxonomy reminds us that livestreamed is not one thing: the relationship between performance space, audience space and distribution channel varies.

Theatre created for online audiences: the network as a production condition

Theatre created for online audiences is often called born-digital, online-native or networked theatre. It is designed around the conditions of online reception. Those conditions may include dispersed performers and spectators, variable bandwidth, latency, screen composition, text chat, platform affordances, asynchronous viewing, and the absence of a shared physical auditorium. The work may be performed live, but its liveness is produced by the network rather than merely relayed through it.

This does not mean every online-native work is interactive or gamified. A company might create a live, single-camera performance specifically for the intimacy of a laptop screen; another might build a multi-site performance in which performers in different countries appear in separate windows; another might use a platform’s chat as a dramaturgical chorus. What matters is that the online medium is not an afterthought. It shapes the writing, the blocking, the rehearsal and the audience contract.

Cabur’s list of circumstances, including whether the stage is in one or several physical spaces, whether cast and crew are co-present or dispersed, and whether the audience shares a physical or digital space, offers a vocabulary for describing these choices. It also shows why a simple label can mislead: two works may both be online and live, yet share almost none of their production conditions.

Why the distinction matters in production

The distinction matters because production decisions follow from it. A livestreamed stage production usually begins with a finished or nearly finished stage work. The creative team then asks how to capture it: camera positions, lighting for camera, sound feed, vision mixing, captions, platform, rights. The stage performance remains the primary artistic object, even if the broadcast has its own director and edit.

A production created for online audiences usually begins earlier. The writer or deviser may ask what the audience will see on screen, how they will enter the performance, whether they will be visible to each other, how long they can be asked to sit, and what happens if the connection drops. Rehearsal may include camera tests, platform tests and audience-flow tests. The set may be a physical studio, a domestic room, a game engine or a combination. The production’s success may depend as much on onboarding and moderation as on acting.

These differences also affect evaluation. A livestream might be judged by whether remote viewers felt connected to the stage event, whether the stream was accessible, and whether it extended the production’s reach. An online-native work might be judged by how well its interaction design supported the dramaturgy, whether dispersed spectators could participate equitably, and whether the technology remained invisible enough for the performance to breathe.

A spectrum, not a binary

Most real productions sit on a spectrum. A stage production with a sophisticated broadcast director, online-specific framing and live chat is not simply a recorded play. An online-native work that includes a live studio audience is not purely digital. The useful question is not which category a work belongs to, but which production logic dominates.

The table is a planning aid, not a legal or artistic rule. A production can move along the spectrum during development. A company may start with a stage show, discover that the online audience responds to the chat, and revise the work into a hybrid. Another may begin with an online concept and later add a live audience. What matters is that the team names the shift and revises the contracts, schedule and audience information accordingly.

Audience experience and the meaning of liveness

Research on streamed theatre suggests that liveness does not disappear when the audience is at home. Erin Sullivan’s study of the Globe’s September 2016 livestream of A Midsummer Night’s Dream analyses audience survey data alongside other surveys of online and cinema broadcast audiences. Focusing on liveness, togetherness, attention and aesthetic experience, the article concludes that temporal liveness continued to matter to online audiences. That finding is a useful corrective to the assumption that remote viewers are simply watching television.

But liveness is not one sensation. In livestreamed theatre, liveness often means that the performance is happening now in a place the viewer is not. In online-native theatre, liveness may mean that spectators and performers are together in a platform at the same time, and that the work can respond to what they do. The first depends on synchronisation with a remote event; the second depends on the audience’s awareness of the network as a shared present. Both can be powerful, but they require different dramaturgies.

Ivor Houlker’s reflection on online streamed theatre makes a related point about medium specificity. He uses an Online Frog thought experiment in which an expert places a camera on a tripod and records a wide shot rather than applying cinematic conventions, so that the viewer has an unfiltered experience. The example is deliberately simple, but it raises a real production question: when a theatre company moves online, should it imitate cinema, imitate television, or invent a grammar appropriate to the stream? There is no single answer, but the question should be asked consciously.

Practical implications for companies working across borders

For international and multilingual companies, the distinction has additional consequences. Livestreamed theatre can extend the reach of a production without requiring the whole company to travel, but it still depends on the stage production’s language, surtitles, rights and venue. Online-native theatre can bring performers and audiences in different countries into the same event, but it introduces questions of time zones, platform access, bandwidth inequality, moderation in multiple languages, and data protection. Neither model automatically produces international exchange; both require deliberate access design.

Translation and captioning are not add-ons. In a livestream, captions may need to be prepared from a script and timed to the live performance; in an online-native work, text may be part of the interface and may need translation alongside spoken dialogue. Companies should clarify who owns and maintains the translated text, whether it will be recorded, and how it will be updated if the performance changes. These are contractual and editorial questions, not only technical ones. Streaming rights, music clearances and performer consent must be checked for the relevant territory and platform; a general workflow is not a legal clearance.

A short planning checklist

• State the primary performance site in one sentence: venue, screen or both.
• Decide whether the online audience is receiving a stage event or is the intended audience from the outset.
• Name the liveness contract: what is happening now, and what can the audience affect?
• Budget for cameras, sound, vision mixing, captions, platform, moderation, backup connectivity and technical rehearsal.
• Test the experience with people who resemble the intended audience, including disabled users and low-bandwidth users.
• Check rights, consents and data arrangements for the relevant jurisdictions and platforms.
• Plan documentation: a recording of a stream is not a full record of an interactive or networked work.
• Agree how success will be evaluated before opening night.

Conclusion

Livestreamed theatre and theatre created for online audiences are related but distinct. The first extends a live stage event through video; the second builds the performance around the conditions of online reception. Many productions combine them, and that is often where the most interesting work happens. The practical task is to be explicit about which logic is driving the project, then to let the artistic, technical, contractual and access decisions follow. A company that knows whether it is broadcasting a stage work or making a work for the network is better placed to rehearse it, budget it, translate it and document it honestly.