Broadway Digital Entertainment's (BDE) Broadway Theatre Archive has announced the launch of a "companion" website to its own URL, one which it says will offer some 1,200 VHS and DVD theatre titles. The catalogue comprises what Broadway Theatre Archive describes as "the most comprehensive and formidable collection of theatre-related videos in one single location."

BDE's web sites now include the original Broadway Theatre Archive at www.BroadwayArchive.com and www.MyBroadwayVideos.com, the new consumer-oriented site. In a written statement, BDE reports that the new www.mybroadwayvideos.com will offer "theatre-related VHS and DVD titles available for purchase and home viewing."

While a call to BDE was not returned by press time, the BDE statement indicates that such titles as Annie, Zou Zou, 1776 and 42nd Street will be available. BDE's catalog includes "plays and classics produced for television over the past fifty years." From the new URL, BDE says, consumers will be "referred and then linked directly to the online retail locations that offer the titles for sale. Other genres featured on the new site include "opera and dance, master class as well as instructional videos, documentaries and children's theatre programming."

In addition to the content described above, BDE's database-driven site will offer news, editorial features about the theatrical video scene, biographical profiles and "space for personal 'wish lists' for new releases."

New releases are planned this spring from BDE's archive. Highlights include "the 1966 landmark television adaptation of Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman with original Broadway stars, Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock, Katharine Hepburn in her television debut in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, as interpreted by Jason Robards, Jr. and Colleen Dewhurst in the celebrated 1973 revival directed by José Quintero. BDE's launch is the latest development in a long-Range program that is based on digitally restoring "historic theatrical productions originally produced for television [and making them] available for the first time for home viewing."

BDE's archive includes the "finest anthology series produced for the three major television networks and public television stations, among them PBS-TV's American Playhouse, Thirteen/WNET's Great Performances and Theater in America. KCET-TV's Visions and the aforementioned Hollywood Television Theatre, Dupont's Show of the Month plus many other distinguished series from Time-Life and HBO.

For a complete list of titles visit www.BroadwayArchive.com or call (800) 422-2827 for a free Winter/Spring 2001 print catalog.

—By Murdoch McBride