Small town plays canceled due to legal dispute

[BlueOhio]

@Dewey_Finn

Another article, this one from The New York Times. It says, “The [Harper Lee] estate’s lawyers sent several letters to Dramatic [Publishing Company, which sells the theaters the rights to put on the play] over the last few weeks protesting its granting of rights to a number of theaters. The letters invoked a 1969 contract between Lee and Dramatic that blocks ‘Mockingbird’ productions within 25 miles of cities that had a population of 150,000 or more in 1960 (the last census year before the agreement was signed) while a ‘first-class dramatic play’ based on the novel is playing in New York or on tour.”

So it sounds like Harper Lee’s estate is the villain here.

I’m in Dayton, Ohio where the local playhouse has been affected. What makes that original contract even more humiliating is that Dayton no longer has 150,000 people in it anyway; sticking to original census figures seems really odd.

[kaylasdad99]

@nearwildheaven

This kind of thing has happened before. “The Music Man”, in all its forms, was put on some kind of copyright lockdown in the 1990s because of an issue with Meredith Willson’s estate. It wasn’t shown on TV or at film festivals, you couldn’t rent it on VHS or Lazerdisc, the play wasn’t done nor were even school bands allowed to play things like “76 Trombones”, etc.

Am I allowed to put my copy of Meet the Beatles! in my CD player?

[Uncle_Jocko]

@BlueOhio

I’m in Dayton, Ohio where the local playhouse has been affected. What makes that original contract even more humiliating is that Dayton no longer has 150,000 people in it anyway; sticking to original census figures seems really odd.

The population restriction is based on the 1960 census, which was the most current one available when this provision was made in 1969. Why they haven’t updated it since, I don’t know.

Anyway, while I have no problem joining the rest of the internet in heaping scorn upon Scott Rudin just for being Scott Rudin, it appears he’s on firm legal ground and it’s Dramatic Publishing Company that should be on the hook with these regional theatres.

Here’s the story as related by someone I know who has a lot of knowledge about Broadway/theatre production issues:

• In 1969, when the first approved play script based on To Kill A Mockingbird was written, Harper Lee and DPC included a provision in the rights contract that no play based on the novel could be produced within 25 miles of any city of over 150,000 population (1960 census) if there was a production in New York or on a national tour. Of course this type of provision would be to protect ticket sales for the NYC/tour production.

• The 1969 script (as well as the 1991 revision, which changed the narrator from several of the townspeople to a grown-up Scout) were, frankly, not that good. Certainly acceptable for school groups, which was the main market, but not anything that was ever going to Broadway or on tour. Hence, that provision blocking productions in large markets was never in play.

• With the development of the Sorkin/Rudin production planned for Broadway, the producers began efforts to obtain rights for this new adaptation from Lee/the Lee estate. These rights included that never-used provision to block any other play based on the novel in large cities (regardless of which script).

• DPC apparently placed their faith in efforts by some connected with the Lee estate to stop development of the Sorkin production. Banking on the hope it would never see the Broadway stage, DPC continued to sell rights to produce the TKAM play in cities where the rights contract would prohibit performance.

• The Lee estate and Sorkin/Rudin came to terms, the new play began performances … and those regional theatres who followed the rules as they knew them, obtained rights, and scheduled TKAM now found themselves in legal jeopardy.

Rudin has the rights as developed in 1969 to protect ticket sales for a Broadway/tour production (setting aside the issue of how a regional theatre production of an inferior script is actually a threat to an Aaron Sorkin Broadway show starring Jeff Daniels). It was DPC that ignored the contract and continued to sell rights for productions that weren’t authorized by the contract.

[Cayuga]

I wonder if there wasn’t a bit of a screw-up in that original contract. No productions within 25 miles of New York makes sense if there is a show in New York. But no shows within 25 miles of LA, Chicago, Denver, Dayton, etc. only makes sense if there is touring company. Seems to me the original idea might have been two different contingencies, and then they got conflated somehow.

Not that it makes any difference now.

[AlsoNamedBort]

@Cayuga

I wonder if there wasn’t a bit of a screw-up in that original contract. No productions within 25 miles of New York makes sense if there is a show in New York. But no shows within 25 miles of LA, Chicago, Denver, Dayton, etc. only makes sense if there is touring company. Seems to me the original idea might have been two different contingencies, and then they got conflated somehow.

Not that it makes any difference now.

I think the assumption is that eventually the new version will tour there.

Anyways, a compromise has been offered:
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/To-Kill-a-Mockingbird-Compromise-Offered-to-Small-Theaters-506608001.html

[RTFirefly]

@Thudlow_Boink

You’d be surprised how many books get adapted into plays. Usually not by the original author. (Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None are two exceptions that come to mind.)

I saw an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine that was put on by a local theater company last fall.

[MrAtoz]

@Thudlow_Boink

You’d be surprised how many books get adapted into plays. Usually not by the original author. (Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None are two exceptions that come to mind.)

Allow me to introduce you to Joseph Robinette, prolific author of no less than 55 plays. Some of them musicals, most of them adaptations of novels or movies. Among his titles are adaptations of Charlotte’s Web, The Jungle Book, Anne of Green Gables, The Paper Chase, A Rose for Emily, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Sarah, Plain and Tall.

These are mostly aimed at regional and community theaters, and schools (although his musical adaptation of A Christmas Story did have a brief run on Broadway, long enough to be nominated for a Tony). The scripts are pretty simplified and pared down, as you can imagine. But they’re out there, and since the rights are fairly inexpensive, are a staple of small theaters everywhere.

[aceplace57]

I’m a bit confused between rights for a book vs play.

The book is the original material. Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Doesn’t a playwright need permission to adapt that work into a play?

Does Harper Lee’s estate control the rights to the book and the play?

I thought it’s like an arrangement of music. Someone writes a song. A band creates a unique arrangement and performs it. The person that wrote the song controls the copyright? But the performance also has a copyright too?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@aceplace57

Does Harper Lee’s estate control the rights to the book and the play?

Yes to both. And if you read the Times article linked above, you’ll see that it was the estate who originated the dispute, not the Broadway producer. In fact, it was spelled out in post #3.

[Uncle_Jocko]

For those who might still be interested in the nuts-and-bolts of this story, this is a good in-depth explanation.

Of the three sides you could identify here - the Rudin production, the Lee estate, and DPC - it seems pretty clear it’s DPC that was operating on the shady side, telling regional theatres their rights purchased from DPC were valid while at the same time refusing to give those theatres a financial guarantee against a lawsuit. With Rudin now opening up rights to the new Sorkin script to these regional theatres (for free!), that also cuts the legs right out from under DPC and the (some would say inferior) script they offer.