Here's a pretty interesting article — well, it was interesting to me, at least — about how PBS goes about capturing a stage performance for airing and home viewing. It's mainly about David Horn, a producer and director for Great Performances over more than four decades.
One of the shows he and his crew recorded was the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria starring Julie Andrews. My friend, the lovely Brinke Stevens, and I were in the audience at a performance that was shot with a number of robotic cameras on cranes over our heads. I believe they did this for several performances and then edited them together. This was in the first week of December of 1995, just a few weeks after the show had opened –and I forget how I learned this but it was not going to be shown in this country soon, if ever.
Someone did a lot of swift editing because it debuted on Japanese television just a few weeks later — on 12/23. Bootlegs made their way into this country and then it was finally shown on PBS and released on DVD much, much later. I wish everything on Broadway would get recorded like this.
Mr. Horn's team is still recording shows, including the recently-debuted concert, Audra McDonald at the London Palladium. You can view it on your local PBS station or on this website or directly below this paragraph. Everything this woman does is worth watching and/or hearing.