After the wild success of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy in the early ’00’s, it was perhaps inevitable that a stage adaptation would be created. And so it was in the 2006 production, The Lord of the Rings, which played in Toronto and in London. It seems to have been well received by those who saw it, and indeed was closer to the text than the movies, yet did not have their staying power in popular imagination. Subsequent live orchestral events where an orchestra performs the score of the three films live before the audience while the film plays on screen have perhaps been more popular. And now The Hobbit, which of course had its own film trilogy in the ’10’s, is coming to the stage at the Stratford Festival in Canada in 2026. My own view of live theatrical productions is mixed since, on the one hand, they allow intimacy with the characters of a sort which is impossible on screen and yet, on the other hand, the suspension of disbelief required for the sweeping and fantastical lands of Middle Earth is much harder to achieve in the theatre. What is your view of these live productions?