Tuesday, March 05, 2019
Scott Rudin Tries To Turn Mess Of Shutting Down Community Theater Shows... Into Publicity Stunt For His Own Show
Techdirt: On Friday, we wrote about the cartoonishly evil decision by producer Scott Rudin, who is producing a big Broadway reboot of To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Aaron Sorkin, to shut down local community theater versions of the earlier play version of the story, written by Christopher Sergel. Apparently, the contract with the Harper Lee estate for a stage adaptation of her book involved some odd clause that said if there was a showing on Broadway of Mockingbird, there couldn't be any stagings near a city.
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2 comments:
I just wrote a comment in reply to the original article about him allowing these community theaters to produce the show, and much of what's said here echoes what I was saying. I know that this will never happen, and that I cannot do anything about it, but I really wish something would change in the entertainment industry. I wish that investors were investing with the intention to produce something special and create art, rather than just earning money. These threats were clearly motivated by money, and so is his "solution." If he were truly thinking only about these theaters lost income, then he would never have made the threats at all. I really hate that Broadway is all about money, and I really hate that their producers are business people above everything else. That's really not the right environment to be making any form of art, whether it be tv, film, or theater.
When I first heard about this situation, I felt like maybe Rudin's hands were tied because of the contract, but based on his reaction I feel like it was motivated by money. It does not make sense that he can have this be a solution, but not allow community theaters to produce the decades old version. Not to mention the fact that it was far too late for these theaters to swap out scripts. Also, it is obvious the contract itself is motivated by monetary gain. It suggests that if people can see a show locally, the will not bother to see a new Broadway version. I feel like the price to fly to New York and the price to see the show is more of a barrier and in reality this is just another way that theater continues to be classicist and bars certain people from being a part of the community.
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