ceebeegee | Chicago in the Bronx

I've been reading some more about this production of Chicago in the Bronx--a high school was about to put it on without the rights, and Sam French (they manage the rights) and the Weisslers (producers of the current incarnation on Broadway) found out about the HS production and sent a cease-and-desist letter, shutting it down. This story first broke on Monday or Tuesday--the show was due to go up this week. There was some media coverage, and eventually Sam French said they could go ahead. I figured it was a fairly innocent case of kids not knowing any better. Apparently not--the drama teacher transcribed the dialogue? From the movie? What drama teacher doesn't know you have to secure the rights? And when confronted with the inconvenient reality that yes, you have to pay to perform this material, both the teacher and the principal tried to spin it as though Sam French and the Weisslers were being unreasonable. Again--drama teacher? And you're that ignorant? Then you shouldn't be teaching drama. I have nothing but contempt for a so-called educator who is ignorant of that BASIC reality in play production.

I certainly hope the "teacher" and the principal explained to the kids how they were solely at fault, and how gracious Sam French and the Weisslers were to let the production go on anyway.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wait a minute.
Transcribed the dialogue from the movie?
Urge to kill... rising.

You're the drama teacher and you don't know this?
You know what? I just dealt with a director who thought she didn't need to deal with Equity and thought she could rearrange the script any way she pleased.

I've seen it happen.

Th drama teacher? Is he/she new? To the school? To teaching drama? To basic human contact?!

Holy... I'm looking for the right words and they're just not coming. Not the least of which, they used the movie dialogue?! Isn't that stepping on the toes of Miramax? And extremely tacky?!
Ugh! I'm ill.

It gets better--the drama "teacher" added his own dialogue. He said he'd "never been told" of the need to apply for rights (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/theater/10musi.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1147233836-LOCv4+mmquiNXUex6tgRNA). Don't you love the passive, not-my-fault sound of that?

And the principal shrugged and said he'd never applied for rights before--in 27 years of doing plays, he'd never done so.

The best solution would be to let the show go on (for the kids), but garnish every single admission fee, and levy penalties as well. And then go back through the past 27 years years and levy retroactive penalties for whatever unauthorized productions had been mounted. And then fire both the principal and the drama "teacher."

I have nothing to add to this discussion. I just dig your new icon.

While I understand where you are coming from, the last thing that anyone needs to do is put schools in that kind of ferocious debt. That's sending absolutely the wrong message to teach kids about the theater business and its ability to destroy the drama department, school lunches, and special Ed for Timmy's retarded sister.

Maybe the penalties could be symbolic then--say $10-30 for every unauthorized production, as a means of quantifying the wrong-doing. Although I read they school has a $5,000 budget for lumber so I guess they're not doing too badly.

It's the cynicism that sticks in my craw. I don't believe FOR A SECOND those two guys didn't know they were breaking the law. A drama teacher doesn't know about rights? Bullshit. They just didn't think they'd get caught. And when they did, they spun it so they didn't face effective penalties, by holding up the kids and painting SF and the producers as The Man. And--they were right.

They absolutely should be fired, and I like your idea about exposing the kids to real theater, to a teachable moment. The kids are authentic victims, and it does suck that those who should be teaching them are using them.

It was reported it AMNY and Metro yesterday as if the Broadway producers were being bad guys or something. The producers of the show go a go ahead for a "Single Unlicensed" production of the show. However, the papers did not even mention the published, rights or anything. Basically the kids were made out as victims and the school, too, as victims of big, bad, Broadway. Seriously, who in the world does not know that you need rights to perform. Also, I grew up in Niskayuna, NY and we were thinking of doing Chicago at one point but when the revival was announced, we knew we could not get rights. I was just within 75 miles away and WE knew that!

But you can't blame the kids. They are, in fact, blameless. They rested in the faith that the "adults" in this situation did their job. If the teacher expects them to be professional, his professionalism should be a given.

However, the teacher and the principal are freaking idiots of epic proportions. And yes, they wanted the Weisslers to sound like the big meanies. But what I got from the story is, "the principal's a dumbass." I didn't even know about the drama teacher. Wow. What exactly are you smoking and how much of it on a daily basis?

Why are the idiots always in charge? Is it because the smart people know better? What is that?

That is not the way AMNY and Metro spun it, though. They spun it like Kids vs. Broadway. Other papers have mentioned the principal not those two.

Yeah, but those are sound bites we can read on the train. Not much else. Of course they're going to spin it like that. It pumps up the public outrage in a very simple way in a short amount of time. "How can you greedy bastards do this to children?" And other such stuff.

I could not believe that he just decided to look at the dialogue, not even the actual script, third-hand on an Internet site and give this to kids to perform! This was handled all kinds of wrong and those facts were ignored for the sake of readership. Yeah, I'm not even shocked.

The president of Samuel French, however, is not all that swayed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Van Nostrand said that Samuel French would begin looking into those previous musical productions that Mr. Leder said the school had been putting on without, to his recollection, applying for permission. "I'm a little curious about what those other 27 years were," Mr. Van Nostrand said.

Bet your ass, he's curious. If that program goes under from back penalties, the kids should know who to thank.

Apparently not--the drama teacher transcribed the dialogue? From the movie?

So I guess that means they cut "Class" from this version too.

Sweetie, he added his own dialogue.

"Class" never entered into it.

You know, originally, I was willing to keep an open mind, because I was very cognisant of the lack of opportunities of most high school students in the Bronx to get to do these kinds of things (or much of anything due to underfunded public schools). Not that I know the specific demographics of the school in question, but I was willing to keep an open mind. The idea of a big corporate entity swooping down and telling these kids, oh, you can't do that seemed to be just more of the same, more of The Man shutting possibly disadvantaged New York City public school students in such a way that might lead them to gang activity or drugs or something The Man might view as more suited to their demographic. This is what it appeared to be to me, at the outset. And I'm saying this as a playwright, aware of copyright laws, etc.

But now I guess it just sounds stupid. I still think, though, that this ends up screwing the students in ways that keep them down. Can we fire the drama teacher and get the kids who were in the show to maybe come down and see some real theater on The Man's tab (and not Mamma Mia either, something that could legitimately change their lives)? Then my sense of social justice might be appeased.

there are rules, and you have to follow them. they got caught. it was really really gracious for samuel french to allow them to follow through.

now that i know how easy it is to get a job as a drama teacher, i am reconsidering getting into teaching.

As a law student who has taken copyright law and actually applied and was granted a copyright once, I add this...demonizing Samuel French is ridiculous. The way that copyright law works is that it is your job to enforce your own copyrights (and trademarks, actually) and if you don't, you actually lose your rights. There is no such thing as saying, "Okay, I am being robbed of my intellectual propery but it is only kids so I will overlook it." If you overlook and you chose not to enforce your copyright rights, you lose them. That is why that although one production is being granted, the rights owners are very clear to state that this is still an "unlicensed" production. Samuel French and others had no choice unless they wanted to lose the ability to ever grant rights again.

Chicago in the Bronx

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject