5637847279_3acce67b5f_nYouTube is an extremely interesting place for entertaining people with videos and for creating communities and networking. You have your vloggers, your cat videos and musicians who are “discovered” online like Jessie J. Also, there are those creating musicals; they are often very short but it is a great way for writers to practice their art and you never know who is watching so it could generate work for them.

Personally, in this digital age I see musicals like these as possibly being the future, and think that they can only help the onstage world as opposed to hinder it. Below are five of my favourite YouTube musicals:

1. AVbyte – Two brothers in New York who make weekly musicals and have done so since 2011. Also for those who like knowing how videos are created they also produce an accompanying behind-the-scenes video. One of my personal favourites is Draw My Life: Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey: The Musical.

2. The World’s Worst Musical – This one is similar to a web series in that there is plot running through the weekly videos. It centres on a guy coming up with possible musical ideas which range from driving lessons to Where’s Waldo/Wally. They too have fun behind-the-scenes videos. I hope they have the chance to create more work.

3. Cdsza – Zuckerburg: The Musical – So this one is a standalone video and it parodies Facebook by using existing musical theatre songs and is pretty funny. According to their description they create musical experimentations and put out videos every Tuesday so possibly a good channel for any music geeks. 

4. Beyond The Door – A New Musical –This one is a British pick and it is audio only, but it has some of the big West End names singing the songs. My personal favourite is Hadley Fraser singing the title track. Laura Tisdall, the writer, was also a contestant in @westendproducer‘s search for a Twitter composer and there are videos of the songs being performed at the competition on the channel.

5. A Very Potter Musical – So this one is a full-length musical and if you watch it then that is 4 hours of your life gone – but it is a good way to spend your time. This was originally made as a parody show between friends at the University of Michigan; they put it online so they could show friends and family and as it was 2009 and before the age of viral videos they had no idea they would one day have over 10 million views. What I like about this is that this led to them then creating a musical theatre company, Team Starkid, after graduation and they continue to make musicals and put them on YouTube for their fans to watch. They also have friends in common with the people behind World’s Worst Musical so there are familiar faces in both. Oh, and yes that is Darren Criss of Glee as Harry Potter.

If anyone else has favourite musicals they have found online then please share as I would love to see them.