(via Mandy Rausch)
I finally got around to reading this (which you should before you read this blog). I don't think the author is trying to "pity party" at all (as some people thought when I read this on Mandy's Facebook). He accepts the consequences of his actions. And frankly, I agree with him. Shakespeare can be adapted (sometimes almost beyond recognition) just because it's more than 100 years old, but a musical that was based on a cult film from the 50s can't be adapted by using the same material its based on? The owners of the musical rights HAVE to be paying rights to the original film every time the show is presented somewhere - that payment will trickle down to the company who is doing the musical. If he had decided to do a mash-up of Little Shop and some completely different show/movie/whatever, that's a different issue.
However, as a director, I find it imperative to be able to give my own interpretation to a show. And if we're dealing with legalities, TONS of (smaller) theatre companies use pre-existing music as background or foreground in a play, and rarely do they pay the rights to those songs. Small theatre companies are constantly working under the hope that the Big Bad Corporations won't notice if they're doing something innovative with pre-existing art without necessarily going through the proper pipelines. I don't think people should put up shows without paying the proper rights for the show ITSELF (which Boxcar seems to have done), but to be penalized for adding an innovative spin is a relic of old-school theatre, and needs to be done away with, in my opinion.
That said, he did sign a contract, and WAS aware that it was against what he signed, so it's absolutely understandable that the show was cancelled. The director seems to get that. The issue that he presents is that the general idea of WHY it happened should be discussed further. He mentions Charles Mee, who I love and am planning to use in a show soon. Mee says the same thing: no art is truly original anymore. We all "steal" ideas from other people, art forms, architecture, whatever. So Mee has every single play he has ever written available on his site FOR FREE. He says that if you do a play as is, you have to pay rights on it (and I believe it's still actually a fairly small fee). However, if you want to take his text, or idea/concept, or even just the title, you can do whatever you want with it and get no penalization. Richard Foreman does the same thing, although he only offers general "notebooks" to use, rather than his full plays.
People want to get paid for their work, absolutely. But often, younger artists are more likely to share their work more freely, because they want it to get out there. Free publicity is better than none, and I think there are more new writers nowadays that get that. The more precious people are about their work, the more likely we are to deal with people constantly claiming that theatre is dead. We need to evolve. Yes, we need to pay rights on a show, but if everyone is living under the stifling conditions of some copyright person who probably went to school for business or law (and most likely knows nothing about theatre), our creativity will die.
Basically, I'd rather have to cancel a show because the copyright people told me they didn't like my choices than live in fear of being TOO creative. From what I can tell (having had this conversation with many people over the years), I am in the minority here, but I'm glad that Boxcar is willing to step out there and admit it on a larger scale than most would.
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