{{Infobox website | name = OntheBoards.tv | logo = | caption = | type = Video streaming service | owner = On the Boards | author = | revenue = Profit-sharing with artists | url = {{URL|https://www.ontheboards.tv/}} | registration = Optional (Pay-per-view, download, or subscription) | launch_date = January 2010 | current_status = Active | content_license = }}{{Short description|Live performance video streaming service}} {{Use American English|date=May 2019}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2019}}
'''OntheBoards.tv''' is an online streaming video service for contemporary performance, theater, and dance. Launched in 2010, the platform records and distributes recordings with pay-per-view, video download, and video streaming options.
== History ==
On the Boards is a theater in Seattle with high-definition video recording capabilities. Their online video streaming service, OntheBoards.tv, provides pay-per-view screenings of international theater and dance performances. The service launched in January 2010 as a three-year pilot with funds from the Wallace Foundation and DanceUSA as an alternative to low-quality theater recordings shot from the back of the house and rarely distributed. OntheBoards.tv offers rental prices and annual subscriptions. Artists receive a share of the profits.{{r|NYT 2010}}
By early 2010, the service had seven works. One production, ''The Shipment'' by Young Jean Lee, was filmed at On the Boards' Seattle theater with four high-definition cameras and an audio technician, and its video edited, with the playwright's input, by a Seattle production company.{{r|NYT 2010}} Other artists on the platform include Ralph Lemon and Tanja Liedtke,<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Stahl |first1=Jennifer |title=Plugged In |work=Dance Magazine |date=2013-03-01 |url=https://www.dancemagazine.com/plugged_in-9-2306907229.html |language=en |accessdate=2019-05-26 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> and other venues that have filmed performances include Performance Space New York, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Fusebox Festival.{{r|NYT 2014}}
The recordings are shot from points of view around the theater to make film adaptations of live experience rather than a documentation point of view. The production of such recordings tends to be too expensive to be accessible to contemporary performing artists, leaving little opportunity for preservation or distribution beyond a limited run, even as performances can take months to develop and provide minimal compensation or recognition.{{r|NYT 2010}}
The service sought to provide an archival medium for performance and market share for the arts in response to other video streaming services without performance. OntheBoards.tv's artistic director said that the act of recording and sharing is a way of asserting cultural importance, and while he deems live theater a "paramount" experience, was interested in exploring live art in the mediated experience of video streaming. The service also had self-reflexive impact on performance, as one company changed its work in response to viewing the recording and another artist noted how recordings tended to make a definitive version of a performance when part of the medium is the variation from each show's performers and audience. The service also introduced issues of copyright, misappropriation, business models, and sharing clips out of context.{{r|NYT 2010}}
A 2014 review in ''The New York Times'' found the video streaming quality to be uneven, and preferred to pay for and watch the show's single-download version.{{r|NYT 2014}} As of 2017, more than 100 universities and viewers across 157 countries had used the service.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Rich |title=What Lane Czaplinski Brought to On the Boards |work=The Stranger |date=2017-05-31 |url=https://www.thestranger.com/theater/2017/05/31/25176495/what-lane-czaplinski-brought-to-on-the-boards |language=en |accessdate=2019-05-26 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
== References ==
<references>
<ref name="NYT 2010">{{Cite news |last1=Rocco |first1=Claudia La |title=OntheBoards.tv Offers Pay-Per-View Theater and Dance |work=The New York Times |date=2010-01-20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/arts/dance/24boards.html |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
<ref name="NYT 2014">{{Cite news |last1=Burke |first1=Siobhan |title=Movement That Streams |work=The New York Times |date=2017-12-20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/arts/dance/movement-that-streams.html |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>
</references>
Category:Subscription video on demand services Category:Video rental services Category:Contemporary dance Category:Contemporary theatre Category:2010 establishments in Washington (state) Category:Internet properties established in 2010 Category:Online retailers of the United States