Saturday, December 01, 2007
'Urinetown!' lawsuit settled
Variety: "The creators of the Broadway production of 'Urinetown! The Musical' have settled a lawsuit against the production team of a 2006 Chicago incarnation that allegedly included plagiarized staging choices from the Rialto original."
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It's such a difficult situation when talking about copyrighting director's staging choices. How can you copyright, "Walk to platform, jump three times and twirl". I feel like every single case would be completely up in the air. There's nothing new under the sun, but I feel like with staging, there's REALLY nothing new. Staging is the art of reproduction I think. You've seen something done, you incorporate it into your show. There's nothing original about "cross downstage left". I can't imagine that this will happen anytime soon.
We talked about this in tech management. Defining the lines of intellectual property is so difficult to determine. The extent to which one can decide what a strong concept is verses an assembly of limited parts is understandably difficult to determine. I don’t really understand the rules to intellectual property, but it would be interesting to see what the written boundaries are.
This lawsuit makes me even more intrigued about the revival of Les Miserables that is coming to Philadelphia next June. It has been made very clear that the new revival cannot include any of the creative aspects that were seen in the Broadway show, but I'm not sure how literally this will have to be taken. For example, the revolve will probably not be allowed, but the barricade will have to look somewhat similar to actually be recognizable as a barricade.
It is so complicated to when it comes to intellectual properties in theatre, because the boundaries never really exist. I guess this law suit really proves that it will be case-by-case for both the creative team and the producers. Hopefully the communication for the revival creative team and the original creative team is good enough that the things have to be brought to the courts.
In regard to revivals, i do not think that intellectual property has any place in the discussion. Say you do a revival of West Side Story, are you really doing West Side Story if you dont have the famous snapping hunched over, and leg hop thing. (you know what i mean)
Though it is stealing someone elses ideas, a revival is meant to do that. The director should just be happy that their staging has become a cultural icon on a certain peice of work.
I definitely agree that it's difficult to decide what exactly should be copyrightable and what shouldn't be. Especially when we look at other industries and see how protective they have been, going so far as to say samples that are "too long" from a song belong to original artist. I mean we all really don't want to see a theatre example of what happened to The Verve.
I wonder what they sued as evidence of the plagiarism. Did they look at videos or was it done off the stage managers prompt book with the blocking written down? Also, if the stage directions are printed in the script, is it still copyright infringement? or following the instructions?
I do support the right of the directors to be able to say that this version is my artistic vision, but I don't know if they should be suing necessarily. There may have been other legal actions that could have been taken or to have just let it go.
This is a strange area to have to talk about. What can you really call the directors choice, and is it original. I agree that the work of the director should be copyrighted, it is an original work. The problem is that you really can't say for sure who's idea it really was. An artist can create a copy of a fine art work and sell it if its sold as a copy and all dues are paid. So pay up, give dues, and then copy works.
lawsuits are never fun.. It is goign to be interesting what their testimony is and to what extent plagiarism is in theater. Wha ever outcome, audiences everywhere should enjoy this hysterical comedy
we actually just had a conversation on the issue of copying other productions of show and what the line is between doing something similar because of the script and copying. There was a theatre house back home who dealt with lawsuits for similar directions and design of a show but the issue of copyright is always a touchy subject.
I can't imagine what legislation would have to be written to protect "specific staging directions." What is too similar? I can understand if a song looks identical that it would be infringing on intellectual property, but sometimes choices are spelled out, they are correct, they tell the story the best possible way. It must be such a sticky issue with a lot of heated feelings on both sides of the table. I wonder what the specific staging choices in question were.
This is where things get messy. When a show gets so big that people come to expect certain scenic elements or staging choices (like you expect to see Ariel with red-hair in “The Little Mermaid” or you expect to see things like Romeo and Juliet being played on a balcony—it is “the balcony scene” after all), but designers and directors get territorial. Doesn’t anyone think that what they are designing was in some way influenced by someone else’s work? Isn’t imitation the best form of flattery? I’m all for people getting the money and credit they deserve, but sometimes people go too far. Copyrighting staging choices is going too far.
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