Who Gave You the Right?!?

In our case it was Musical Theatre International -- or M-T-I as it is called "in the biz."

MTI administers the performance rights for THE PRODUCERS so if you want to present the show at your theatre you need to call them . . . and you better have your checkbook ready because it is not cheap. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of the expense because it is different for everybody based on how big your house is and how expensive your tickets are. It also matters if you are a professional theatre, an amatuer theatre, or an educational theatre. Our 780 seats add up fast so our bill gets to be pretty huge even though we are a little educational theatre program that honestly does not attract a very big audience. -- at least not more than 700 per night!

Our bill for performance rights to THE PRODUCERS is kind of complicated. You have to pay royalties per performance and this money that goes to the authors -- in our case mostly to Mel Brooks and a little, I assume, to the estate of Thomas Meehan. We also pay rental because all the material has to be returned to the company. A two-month rental is standard and we need three so that's extra. We also require three conductor's scores (when two is standard) so that even more. We also pay a security deposit that may or may not be returned to us depending on whether or not we return the books in a timely fashion and in good condition.

We pay some incidental rights expenses, too, for THE PRODUCERS. We paid extra for a stage maangers script so that there wre no illegal photocopies. We also paid for a director's script and a choreographers guide that includes all of Susan Stroman's dance notations and blocking for the actors. This is the first time I have seen any of these three items available from the publishers and they have definitely come in handy.

If you are going to do the THE PRODUCERS you must pay for it . . . just like almost every other show. If you don't , you are stealing money from the authors and I have a problem with that. I talk often to my students about the concept of "intellectual property" becasue one day they will write a play and they deserve to be paid when some produces it on their stage. So we happily pay MTI for the performance rights and put on our show.

Sometimes people put on shows without the performance rights and I find this practice very troubling. Some people figure "What's the harm?" or "Who's to know?" However, someone is trying to make money off of this product and the whole point is for you to lease the rights to put on your show so that they can make a little money on it.

You might think that a show like PETER PAN, for instance, is so old that it has fallen into the public domain already and that you don't have to ask for permisison to put it on. In this case, you would be very wrong. The rights to PETER PAN in England have expired and therefore are in the public domain but here in the States the copyright is not set to expire until 2024 or something like that. The peformance rights to the musical version of PETER PAN --probably the most famous verion-- are held by Samuel French, Inc, and you should definitely contact them if you intend to put on the show that features the famous songs by Carolyn Leigh Betty Comden, and Adolph Green. If not, you are in violation of copyright law and may very well be thrown into a copyright infringment lawsuit and that might cost you a lot of money.

Besides, I understand that JM Barrie bequeethed the rights to PETER PAN to a children's hospital in England. So when you don't pay your royalties for PETER PAN, some little kid might not get his medicine that day -- or worse. Let that sit in your conscience for a while.

When it comes to PETER PAN you might also step on some Walt Disney toes. Their very popular film version is subject to its own copywright and if your show too closely resembles theirs in costumes, for instance, the long arm of Disney might be reaching out to you. Be careful about that big red costume you wrap Captain Hook into, you never know who is interested. Disney is very serious about protecting their intellectual property and certainly do not want you infringing on their own ability to make money off of it.

When it comes to performance rights I always figure it is better to be safe than sorry. Paying for royalties is part of the cost of doing business. If you can't afford to pay royalties you probably can't afford to do the show.