Documentaries

In the informal style usually reserved for show business parties, here is the unique performance writers bring to their own songs and the stories; the special moments, creative triumphs, occasional regrets, laughs and heartbreaks of their spectacularly creative lives.

In their own words, and not a moment too soon - 'Broadway' tells the stories of our theatrical legends.

A comprehensive collection of great performances captured on film as part of the annual Tony Award® broadcasts. Broadway royalty and Tony® winners, including Lauren Bacall, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Goulet, and Harvey Fierstein, serve as hosts and share their own Broadway and Tony® memories. Produced as PBS specials, Broadway’s Lost Treasures I, II, & III feature legendary stars—including Patti LuPone, Nell Carter, Jerry Orbach, Gwen Verdon, Ethel Merman, Kristin Chenoweth, Angela Lansbury, Joel Gr...

A six-part documentary about the Broadway musical

This documentary tracks the junior production of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods," featuring 140 Washington, DC public school children in a performance at the Kennedy Center. The film captures the growth and transformation of these children, who were given a rare theater experience.

Gorgeously filmed along the back roads of rural Mexico and set to the music of Calexico, Circo follows the Ponce family's hardscrabble circus as it struggles to stay together. Tino, the ringmaster, is driven by his dream to lead his parents' circus to success and corrals the energy of his whole family, including his four young children, towards this singular goal. But his wife Ivonne is determined to make a change. Feeling exploited by her in-laws, she longs to return to her kids a childhood los...

Singer and actress Elaine Paige is best known for her work in musical theatre. Paige was selected to play Eva Perón in the first production of Evita in 1978, which brought her to the attention of the broader public. In 1985, Paige released "I Know Him So Well" with Barbara Dickson from the musical Chess, which remains the biggest-selling record by a female duo. She appeared in The King and I from 2000 to 2001, and six years later she returned to the West End stage in The Drowsy Chaperone. She ha...

Off the Record is an exciting documentary that goes behind the scenes and follows the cast around while they are making the recording of the Tony Award® winning production Guys and Dolls. This recording features original cast members from the smash 1992 revival. This program captures all of the backstage energy and stars Peter Gallagher, Josie de Guzman, Nathan Lane and Faith Prince preparing for their roles. The stars sing some of the all-time favorite songs and then sit down to talk about the...

Since its overwhelming success on Broadway forty years ago, HAIR has inspired generations with its messages of love, non-violence and liberation. This definitive and entertaining documentary highlights the continuing relevance of the show and its still-radical, transformative power. A wealth of archival footage covers US and international productions and portrays an era, a generation and its politics. The efforts of author and co-creator Jim Rado to bring HAIR’s vibrant energy and fantastic scor...

A documentary profile of the tough-talking, tender-hearted genius behind Broadway's "Guys & Dolls" and "How to Succeed in Business" and pop standards from "Heart & Soul" to "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

From the award-winning A&E TV series. The legendary composer's songs sparkle in this illuminating portrait of his life. Join A&E's Biography for an in-depth rags-to-riches tale of a man who's words and music defined a half-century of American popular culture. Through a web of personal misfortune, Irving Berlin conquered Broadway and Hollywood alike with such timeless tunes as "God Bless America", "White Christmas" and "There's No Business Like Show Business". Discover the story behind the extra...

JIG is the remarkable story of the fortieth Irish Dancing World Championships, held in March 2010 in Glasgow. Three thousand dancers, their families and teachers from around the globe descend upon Glasgow for one drama filled week. Clad in wigs, make up, fake tan, diamantes and dresses costing thousands of pounds they compete for the coveted world titles.

A new generation of American musical theater artists come together in a "glorious mosaic of Leonard Bernstein’s show tunes" (New York Times). Brilliantly filmed in the very New York locations celebrated by the songs - Coney Island, Central Park, Times Square - this DVD joins today’s performers with the ageless music of perhaps New York’s greatest musical personality. On the Town, Wonderful Town and West Side Story chronicle the city in all its variety and excitement, and these performances bring...

The award winning Life After Tomorrow, a film by Julie Stevens and Gil Cates, Jr., reunites more than 40 women who played orphans in the original Broadway production of Annie and reveals the highs and lows of their experiences as child actresses in a cultural phenomenon. Once the curtain came down, many found it could be a hard-knock-life, fraught with out-of-control stage mothers, separation anxiety, and worst of all, pubescent growth spurts that could find the moppets being replaced by smaller...

The camera follows the cast and crew throughout rehearsals, eavesdropping on the behind-the-scenes process that goes into creating characters and mounting a production. With appearances from Sir John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, James Earl Jones and Kevin Kline. "Looking For Richard" is "outrageous fun" (Rolling Stone).

Before Prop 8, "Will & Grace," AIDS, gay pride or Stonewall, "The Boys in the Band" changed everything. Crayton Robey's Making the Boys explores the enduring legacy of the first-ever gay play and subsequent Hollywood movie to successfully reach a mainstream audience. Beloved by some for breaking new ground and condemned by others for reinforcing gay stereotypes, "The Boys in the Band" sparked heated controversy that endures to this day. Featuring interviews with its author Mart Crowley, survivin...

Documentary about the National Theatre production of War Horse.

'Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle! The Special Years' is an all new documentary that captures the creative excellence, the brilliant fusion of song and dance, the glamorous Bob Mackie costumes and the non-stop excitement that were the hallmark of her glittering annual television events. Experience the ground breaking Emmy winning performances, unseen for three decades, as well as photos and footage from Gaynor's personal archive that illuminate the behind-the-scenes stories and impact of her landmark...

The exuberant atmosphere of the Broadway blockbuster is captured in "Recording The Producers: A Musical Romp with Mel Brooks," a new 85-minute film from the Emmy Award-winning director Susan Froemke and Maysles Films. The documentary candidly captures the excitement of translating the show into a complete experience for the recording's audience.

In June 2002, London’s West End was taken by storm when Andrew Lloyd Webber presented a new musical phenomenon – AR Rahman’s Bombay Dreams. This lavish and breathtaking production which combines the glamour of the movies, heart-aching romance and epic spectacle, won the acclaim of audiences and critics alike. It was labelled as London’s "hottest most exotic new musical", "one of the wonders of the West End" and "the best musical since The Phantom of the Opera". Salaam Bombay Dreams is an exclus...

Wonderfully archived, and told with a remarkable sense of intimacy, visual style and musical panache, SING YOUR SONG surveys the life and times of singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte. From his rise to fame as a singer and his experiences touring a segregated country, to his provocative crossover into Hollywood, Belafonte's groundbreaking career personifies the American civil rights movement and impacted many other social-justice movements. The documentary reveals Belafonte as a tenacious hands...

An interview with the production team behind the hit Broadway musical as they discuss the conception and development of Les Miserables as a pop-culture phenomenon.

The history of dance depicted on film.

Four-time Tony®-winning actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein is your host for a compilation of amazing dramatic performances from the archives of the Tony Award® broadcasts. Legendary stars perform key scenes from 19 legendary shows, performances seen only once in their original telecast. Collected here with commentary by a Broadway veteran, they become a treasure-trove for fans of great drama. James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, cast, THE GREAT WHITE HOPE Gary Sinise, Tim Sampson, cast, ONE...

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story is an intimate journey through the lives of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, the astoundingly prolific, Academy Award®-winning songwriting team that defined family musical entertainment for five decades with unforgettable songs like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocous” from Mary Poppins, “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book and the most translated song ever written "It’s a Small World (After All)" from the Disneyland attraction. The feature-le...

THE MAKING OF MISS SAIGON is the definitive documentary film companion to one of the greatest Broadway hits of all time. Witness the evolution of this monumental production from its inception in the sumptuous hills of Provence to its glamorous London debut on a fascinating insider's voyage into the world of the theater. Under the exacting leadership of famed Broadway producer Cameron Mackintosh (The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Les Misérables) the artistic forces behind the Tony Award®-winning sh...

A documentary which shows, in great detail, the making of the 1985 Bernstein-conducted recording of the entire score of "West Side Story", featuring operatic stars.

This feature documentary takes a look at the phenomenon that is "The Wizard of Oz" using clips and interviews with such celebrities as Tommy Tune, Joan Leslie, Mickey Rooney, Dom DeLuise, Joel Grey, as well as three of the original munchkins from the classic 1939 film and its producer Mervyn LeRoy. THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD AND BEYOND tells the complete history of THE WIZARD OF OZ story, highlighting some of the earliest stage and screen adaptations. From the quintessential 1939 film to the successf...

Michael Crawford has starred in some of the biggest box-office hits of all time. This DVD is a behind-the-scenes intimate portrait of one of the funniest and most versatile actors, whose popularity in the United States outshines any other British entertainer in the last 30 years.

17,162 Performances, 42 Years, One Show, The Fantasticks!

By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts - maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney re...

WORDS AND MUSIC is the story of one of Broadway's iconic figures: the composer/lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman and an all-star cast, from Carol Channing to Angela Lansbury to Michael Feinstein, chart his rise from 1950s off-Broadway through all of his smash hits. Featuring never-before-seen footage of original stage performances, and a score full of classic show tunes.