<\/p>\n
\n\tBroadway has always lived with bootlegs \u2014 grainy camcorder captures traded like contraband \u2014 but TikTok<\/a> has turned that old black market into a full-blown algorithmic side hustle. Entire showstoppers now pop up in 60-second clips, jumping from the Great White Way straight onto the For You page.<\/p>\n \n\tTake Bria Celest, a 30-year-old Angeleno who has seen plenty of Hadestown <\/em>\u2014 just not at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Instead, her TikTok feed delivers illicit snippets of Ana\u00efs Mitchell\u2019s folk opera. \u201cI don\u2019t live in New York, so I really enjoy that there are people who risk recording in the theater,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n \n\tShe\u2019s hardly alone. Clips from Hamilton<\/em>, Wicked<\/em> and Death Becomes Her <\/em>have flooded the app, creating a bite-sized bootleg economy that\u2019s harder to police than YouTube. One Broadway producer says TikTok\u2019s algorithm makes it especially tricky to control.<\/p>\n \n\tHere\u2019s the twist: Not everyone thinks that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/p>\n \n\tIn some cases, the bootlegs function as marketing. Hunter Plummer, an assistant teaching professor, was on the fence about seeing Audra McDonald in Gypsy <\/em>last year. A few TikTok clips pushed him to make the trip from New Haven to Manhattan \u2014 even though he ultimately saw McDonald\u2019s understudy. \u201cI still went, in part, because of having seen these bootlegs,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tThat upside helps explain why some shows are leaning in \u2014 and why others are not. Productions like Six<\/em> actively encourage audiences to record certain moments, while other shows now use phone pouches to lock devices away during performances. \u201cThere is definitely a fear of cannibalizing the live performance and the sale of a ticket,\u201d says Broadway producer Rachel Sussman. \u201cWe get mixed messages in these live entertainment spaces,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt isn\u2019t one-size-fits-all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn the TikTok era, Broadway may be discovering that a little piracy \u2014 just enough to spark FOMO \u2014 can sometimes help sell the thing it\u2019s technically stealing. <\/p>\n \n\t***<\/p>\n \n\tAlso in Rambling Reporter:<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tOlivia Nuzzi is denying rumors that she\u2019s adapting her just-released memoir for the screen \u2014 but THR<\/em> casts it anyway<\/a>; Dick Van Dyke also reveals<\/a> in his new book that he very nearly played Damien\u2019s dad in the original Omen<\/em>.<\/p>\n