Re: editing licensed shows

You can do almost anything with CHESS if you get permission. One of
the first productions done after Broadway was by the Long Beach Civic
Light Opera in California. The script was very much changed by director
David Bell. When Rob Marshall directed the show for Paper Mill
Playhouse, it too was re-written. I had a great idea on how to fix the
script, but now I understand that the ABBA guys are supposedly writing
the "definitive" version. If you have the right contacts, it's not that
hard to make changes. I produced 110 IN THE SHADE and Harvey Schmidt
sent us 5 or 6 cut songs from the show with his permission to
interpolate them however we wanted.

I've seen several shows shut down because people didn't get permission
for changes. I always wonder how it is that people think they can just
go in and make changes because they want to or because they think it's
the "artistic" thing to do. Some of the biggest offenders are the
summer stock companies. One I know of did the WIZARD OF OZ even before
the RSC version existed. They just took down the movie and they added
"I've got a right to wear those shoes" (...sing the blues) for the
witch and "My Shining Hour" for Dorothy. They got away with it, though.


stephen.farrow@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Mark Cipra wrote:
stephen.farrow@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

[snip]


But, of course, as has already been pointed out, the fact that the
contractual language tends to forbid making any sort of changes to a
show (there are some exceptions - the script of "Chess" that's
available in the UK being one, there's a paragraph from Tim Rice in
the published edition that, while I don't remember the exact wording,
allows you an enormous amount of latitude within the material
connected to the British version of the show and a couple of
additions like 'Someone Else's Story') doesn't necessarily stop
people from making all of the types of cuts/changes you mention above.

Stephen

Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ..." has passages in square
brackets which are suggested cuts.

This allows more latitude than that - essentially, IIRC (I have a copy,
but I can't find it right now), it allows you to assemble the material
in the British version of the script and its appendices in any order
you like, since Rice feels that he was never quite able to make that
version of the show work himself (it also allows you to do things like
give "Someone Else's Story" or "Heaven Help My Heart" to Svetlana
rather than Florence). It does, however, explicitly forbid you from
adding any material *not* contained within the British version of the
script - so you're not allowed to write your own connecting dialogue,
of course, and you're also not allowed to use material from other
versions of "Chess", like, say, the Hungarian Folk Song from Broadway
or the Bangkok narration from Australia.

Stephen

.

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