*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Pan Theater presents Anything Can Happen in Ten Minutes, a collection of short
plays by some of the nation’s top emerging playwrights.
Pan Theater, where neurons fire faster, has been bringing comedic and dramatic
improv to the San Francisco Bay Area and Oakland since 2002.
The theme of the festival is Anything Can Happen in Ten Minutes.
All writers with plays accepted for production will paid at the rate of $100
per winning play. There will be 10 plays produced. We are seeking a range of
plays from serious/dramatic to absurd/comedic.
***
The Phoenix Theatre Company’s 25th Annual Festival of New American Theatre will
run April 7, 2023 – April 23, 2023. The 2023 Festival will feature both curated
and submitted works including: one play reading, two musical readings, one
musical workshop, the Composer Lyricist Cabaret featuring two artists, and the
Choreography Lab which will set movement to musical material featured in the
festival selections. All eligible submissions are welcome and we are actively
seeking submissions from artists with an Arizona connection
***
The Ensemble Playwright Lab (EPL) is a residency program for NYC-based
playwrights to engage with Letter of Marque's (LOM) ensemble of actors,
musicians, dancers, designers, and dramaturgs to create, develop, or reimagine
a piece of work. This experimental process of creation and development is
designed to welcome the playwright into the rehearsal room through active
participation in devised and improvisational explorations. The goals and
outcomes of each residency are mutually determined by both LOM and the
playwright.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PIRACY ***
A church in Texas that earlier this month staged unauthorized productions of
the musical hit “Hamilton,” changing some lyrics to reflect Christian themes,
apologized and agreed to pay damages on Tuesday after lawyers for “Hamilton”
had demanded that they stop performances.
The version put on this month by The Door McAllen, a nondenominational church
in the border town of McAllen, Texas, altered certain words and inserted
invocations of Jesus Christ, according to clips posted on Twitter. It also
included a sermon stating that God could help people with their homosexuality,
as well as with struggles with drugs and alcohol.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/theater/hamilton-christian-production-apologizes.html
***
The Asolo Repertory Theatre is not the first theater to alter a playwright’s
work and violate contractual agreements for production rights.
Playwrights and publishers say it happens all the time, but rarely with a
professional theater of the caliber of Asolo Rep, which was forced to restore
cuts made to Brian Friel’s 1964 Irish drama “Philadelphia, Here I Come.”
A few days after the play opened Jan. 10, the theater received a cease and
desist order from Friel’s agent, the play publisher Samuel French.
Director Frank Galati had substantially altered the play by streamlining the
storytelling to increase its impact on a modern audience. But the theater
apparently didn’t get the permission required to make the changes from the
playwright.
More...
http://ticket.heraldtribune.com/2014/01/31/asolo-faces-criticism-for-altering-a-living-playwrights-work-in-philadelphia/
***
“The play runs too long. We’ll get disqualified.”
“My administration won’t let us say the word ‘cigarette’.”
“I have more girls auditioned than guys.”
In the professional world, changing the script is a big no-no. What the
playwright puts on the page is what is supposed to end up on the stage. The
length is the length. The genders stay the same. If a word puts someone off,
don’t do the play. Certainly changes still happen without the playwright’s permission,
but that’s another story.
In the educational world, the spirit of that law is always in place but there
are other factors in play.
You’re dealing with students.
You’re dealing with parents.
You’re dealing with administrators.
And if you don’t take these groups into consideration there will be
consequences beyond not doing a play. That is a fact and that can’t be ignored.
It creates a situation where you have to request a cut or a change from a
playwright/publisher.
More...
https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/request-cut-change-script/
***
A Virginia youth theatre is on the hook for thousands of dollars in copyright
damages after allegedly presenting unlicensed and unauthorized performances of
at least 16 well-known musicals, including Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka, Matilda,
Seussical, Little Shop of Horrors, and Honk! MTI, a global theatrical licensing
agency, filed suit after receiving no response to numerous requests that the
community theater cease the unlicensed performances.
According to a recent court order, Theaterpalooza offers musical theatre
classes and camps for children. In addition to charging tuition fees up to $600
per child, Theaterpalooza also charges admission to its final performances,
typically $15 for adults and $12 for children. While the theater’s performances
often feature well-known plays, it did so without obtaining authorization from
the copyright holders.
The court order also concludes that Theaterpalooza was aware of MTI's
copyrights on the musicals as early as January 12, 2015 and continued to
perform and advertise unlicensed shows for several years. Accordingly, the
court found that Theaterpalooza "willfully infringed" on MTI's
copyrighted works.
More...
https://scarincihollenbeck.com/law-firm-insights/intellectual-property/local-theater-copyright-infringement
***
This post is about a problem I encountered last summer and have been struggling
to put into words for a while now. At its heart it’s about respecting the work
of the playwright. But it starts with an elaborate back-story including a brief
sidebar on intellectual property rights.
The Back-Story
Last summer, a director friend from a major summer stock theater company
contacted me with some good news: the late-night intern showcase was coming up,
and one of the directing interns had chosen to direct my ten-minute play The
Roosevelt Cousins, Thoroughly Sauced. They’d already been rehearsing for a
couple of weeks, and my friend wanted to put me in touch with the director to
discuss the play. To which I said, “That’s great. Of course I’ll speak with the
director. But that particular play is published by Sam French. Have y’all contacted
them for the rights?”
More...
https://www.mikelew.com/thoughts-on-the-theater-blog/-a-plea-about-arts-piracy-in-theater
***
Playwright Neil Simon revoked the Grove Theatre’s rights to perform his play
“Rumors” when producers refused to stage it as written, including the
profanity.
The comedy was set to open next Thursday at the Pleasant Grove dinner theater,
with actors replacing the play’s blue language with more palatable dialogue.
Now, contrary to the old theater maxim, the show must not go on.
The theater’s producer and owner Gayliene Omary said, “Someone reported us to
Samuel French … and they said in taking the profanity out, that put us in
violation of the copyright. They said we had to do it as written or not at
all.”
Samuel French Inc., is a firm that handles copyrights and royalties for many
plays and musicals. The firm’s letter to Omary, dated July 29, said, “If any
changes have been made during the rehearsal process, we ask that you restore
the script to the original text.”
More...
https://www.heraldextra.com/news/2003/aug/08/playwright-kills-play-over-lack-of-profanity/
***
Playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists often struggle professionally
in theatres throughout the country, and even on Broadway, due to the
wide-ranging demands and expectations imposed on them by their producers (and
other collaborators) which are presented as “standard” terms. It is
essential, therefore, that dramatists know their rights, which the Dramatists
Guild established in 1926 and has defended ever since.
In order to protect their unique vision, which has always been the strength of
the theatre, dramatists need to understand this single fundamental principle:
they own and control their work. To ensure this ownership and control, the
Guild recommends that any production involving a dramatist incorporate a
written agreement in which both the producer and the writer acknowledge certain
key industry standards, including the following:
Ownership of Intellectual Property
You own the copyright of your dramatic work. Authors in the theatre business do
not assign (i.e., give away or sell in entirety) their copyrights, nor do they
ever engage in “work-for-hire.” When a university, producer or theatre wants to
mount a production of your play, you only license (or lease) the public
performance rights to your dramatic property to that entity for a finite period
of time.
MORE AT THE DRAMATISTS GUILD
https://www.dramatistsguild.com/rights
