Kwame Kwei-Armah: Filming costs must be hard-wired into show budgets post-Covid

Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah has said the cost of filming shows for streaming online will need to be hard-wired into budgets post Covid-19, arguing that theatre has been operating “in the 20th century” until now.

The comments were made during an online panel discussion on the digital future of the performing arts as part of the CogX Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI.

Speaking on the panel, Kwei-Armah said: “After this lockdown there will not be a theatre board that will not sanction some kind of capture of the majority of the shows that a theatre produces.

“I think we’ve learned that lesson – that we were in the 20th century. It’s going to need to be hard-wired into the budget that shows are captured and then possibly streamed, depending on one’s relationship to the audience.”

Kwei-Armah argued that it would be “backwards” to ignore how streaming shows online can make theatre more accessible.

“Most of us did not come into theatre to serve the 1% or the 4% or the 10% that may have walked through the doors of a theatre in the past year,” he said.

“We came in because we believe in access for all, and to ignore technology and its power to give accessibility to a space would be rather backwards thinking.”

Kwei-Armah also said he wanted to explore how the industry can incorporate virtual reality to bring live performance into people’s homes.

“I also think that we as a sector are talking about this in a very 2018 or 2015 fashion,” he said. “And actually what I’m fascinated with, is how we come up with the next idea, the next version of NT Live that operates within the sphere of XR [extended reality].

“That’s where I’m putting my brain right now: what is that model, where we can bring the live into the homes of people in a way that uses [artificial intelligence]?”