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Thursday, February 28, 2019
Legal Threats From Broadway’s ‘Mockingbird’ Sink Productions Around the Country
The New York Times: Some community theaters have canceled productions of the play after receiving legal warnings that theirs cannot go on at the same time as the one in New York.
4 comments:
Lenora G
said...
I see both sides here. I want to believe that this is simply an attempt to protect the new play, but in reality, I think that this man has a personal money grabbing vendetta. No one is going to not see the broadway or tour version just because of a community theater production that was mounted in a small town. Some of the actions of this producer really seem off to me, like the fact that Harper Lee was not happy with the end product but died before she was able to stop it, and he still staged it anyway. It also is just a little bit disgusting to send out these cease and desist letters to theaters that are only weeks away from opening. This really just seems like he's trying to sue people to extort more money, and has no respect for art or theater. This is why I hate producers, they're business people, but they have no respect for theater or art. He doesn't get anything out of forcing these shows to close, really, all he gets out of it is the ability to control community theaters.
I really do understand the reasoning of the action from a very base perspective, but there had to be a better way to do it. I believe a distinction should have been made between companies just starting to do Mockingbird, and companies on the eve of doing Mockingbird. In the early phases, receiving a letter like this is less of a roadblock because the commitment has not been totally made yet. If you are going to make sure that they do not perform a different version of your story, out of courtesy you should be reimbursing the companies for all the labor, people and time that went into the production. It's incredibly frustrating because this news affected small companies, community theaters, and schools. There is a value to them and their community in staging it, and now they don't have the funds to fight back. I cannot speak on behalf of Harper Lee, but as someone who consumed the story as a child, and then grew up in a society that began to exploit the story and Ms. Lee's work, I see Mr. Rudin's actions as insensitive, uneducated and out of line.
Okay, this is ridiculous. If they have already paid for the rights, you shouldn’t be able to just take them away because the show is opening on Broadway. If they want to stop making the right available once a Broadway production is set to happen, that is one thing, but to retroactively retract them is just dumb. Also, if you think a theater in Dayton that seats 170 people is problematic competition for your Broadway production, you are both wrong and making it seem like you are very un-confident about the quality of your production. I just don’t understand why the producers of this show were so scared about competition that they couldn’t just let the assorted local productions of the show run their course and then make sure rights weren’t issued for additional productions moving forward. All I know is that even if I might’ve gone to see the Broadway production before, I definitely won’t now. I don’t want to support a production that doesn’t have any respect for local theaters and the work people put in to create those productions.
Scott Rudin can go stick it up his ass. This is nothing about “infringing” on legal rights, this is all about infringing on his chance to make a couple more bucks. This is a show that needs to be put on as often as necessary which of recent is very often. It is not like this is even the same version as the Broadway version. I think the Lee estate made a deal with the devil when they let him produce, their first red flag should have been when they were ok with makin Scout a full grown adult. The fact that some of these shows were already loaded in means that this curmudgeon had plenty of time to stop them, he just wanted to make it hit when it would hurt most. It is too early in the morning for me to be this pissed already but here I am. I love the story of Mockingbird so therefore I would never want to restrict the availability of such a beautiful piece of work. Well Mr. Rudin certainly lost one ticket, mine, I will not see no matter how many times he drags it through Chicago.
4 comments:
I see both sides here. I want to believe that this is simply an attempt to protect the new play, but in reality, I think that this man has a personal money grabbing vendetta. No one is going to not see the broadway or tour version just because of a community theater production that was mounted in a small town. Some of the actions of this producer really seem off to me, like the fact that Harper Lee was not happy with the end product but died before she was able to stop it, and he still staged it anyway. It also is just a little bit disgusting to send out these cease and desist letters to theaters that are only weeks away from opening. This really just seems like he's trying to sue people to extort more money, and has no respect for art or theater. This is why I hate producers, they're business people, but they have no respect for theater or art. He doesn't get anything out of forcing these shows to close, really, all he gets out of it is the ability to control community theaters.
I really do understand the reasoning of the action from a very base perspective, but there had to be a better way to do it. I believe a distinction should have been made between companies just starting to do Mockingbird, and companies on the eve of doing Mockingbird. In the early phases, receiving a letter like this is less of a roadblock because the commitment has not been totally made yet. If you are going to make sure that they do not perform a different version of your story, out of courtesy you should be reimbursing the companies for all the labor, people and time that went into the production. It's incredibly frustrating because this news affected small companies, community theaters, and schools. There is a value to them and their community in staging it, and now they don't have the funds to fight back. I cannot speak on behalf of Harper Lee, but as someone who consumed the story as a child, and then grew up in a society that began to exploit the story and Ms. Lee's work, I see Mr. Rudin's actions as insensitive, uneducated and out of line.
Okay, this is ridiculous. If they have already paid for the rights, you shouldn’t be able to just take them away because the show is opening on Broadway. If they want to stop making the right available once a Broadway production is set to happen, that is one thing, but to retroactively retract them is just dumb. Also, if you think a theater in Dayton that seats 170 people is problematic competition for your Broadway production, you are both wrong and making it seem like you are very un-confident about the quality of your production. I just don’t understand why the producers of this show were so scared about competition that they couldn’t just let the assorted local productions of the show run their course and then make sure rights weren’t issued for additional productions moving forward. All I know is that even if I might’ve gone to see the Broadway production before, I definitely won’t now. I don’t want to support a production that doesn’t have any respect for local theaters and the work people put in to create those productions.
Scott Rudin can go stick it up his ass. This is nothing about “infringing” on legal rights, this is all about infringing on his chance to make a couple more bucks. This is a show that needs to be put on as often as necessary which of recent is very often. It is not like this is even the same version as the Broadway version. I think the Lee estate made a deal with the devil when they let him produce, their first red flag should have been when they were ok with makin Scout a full grown adult. The fact that some of these shows were already loaded in means that this curmudgeon had plenty of time to stop them, he just wanted to make it hit when it would hurt most. It is too early in the morning for me to be this pissed already but here I am. I love the story of Mockingbird so therefore I would never want to restrict the availability of such a beautiful piece of work. Well Mr. Rudin certainly lost one ticket, mine, I will not see no matter how many times he drags it through Chicago.
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