Chicago in the Bronx

[ceebeegee]

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.

Comments

[mollyx.livejournal.com]

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.