Re: Directors and script alterations

Christopher Jahn wrote:
Ray S <mail@xxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:UQ%Vi.39695$G23.682@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Christopher Jahn wrote:
Ray S <mail@xxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:87IVi.39671$G23.6441@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

dgsweet wrote:
As a writer who's seen his stuff changed without permission
(and destroyed), I second Chris's recommendation.

The stupidity and arrogance that supports changing the work
of others deserves to be met with contempt and legal
action. When they change our stuff, people think we're
responsibe for the garbage they put up and it damages our
reputations and the rep of our work.

Sondheim is particularly sensitive about this stuff. He'll
close 'em down in two seconds. And send them tourist
tickets to hell.

What kinds of scales of changes are we talking about here?
Are we talking word perfect here?
There's no real good reason for it not to be. If an
orchestra misses the notes, you'd be upset. Plays and
musicals should be held to the same standard at a minimum. If you can't learn the script, you don't belong in theater.

But it's unlikely you'll lose the rights to a play because an
actor slips on a line or two; the real complaints are when a director substitutes entire sentences, or adds them outright,
or removes them entirely.
I'd go so far as never happens for something this minor.


I've seen an actor fired because a playwright got tired of never hearing his lines in one scene; that actor kept putting in ad-libs, and making one subtle change. So it CAN happen, it's just very rare. David Mamet and William Mastrisimone are both "THAT picky."

And I don't think they are wrong; if the orchestra kept missing notes, you'd expect the offenders to be fired.

The Coconut Grove Playhouse lost the rights to a musical
because they added songs from other shows. The changes might
have been great, they might have drastically improved the
show - but the playwright has to make that determination,
period. If you don't like the play you've licensed to do,
don't do it. Find a play you can do as written, or write
your own play from scratch. Or find something in the public
domain and maul away.

But here your talking about a major change. I'm looking more
for the kinds of examples one may see at a community theater
level. The original scrip set in 1800's, there is no
overriding reason for it to be in the 1800's, and there is
only one reference in the entire script to pre 20th century.

But that isn't actually changing the script; that's the design and staging, which are not actually part of the script.

Thats what I'm trying to work out. Some posts in this thread seem to imply a stricter standard. Deliberate changing of words and added scenes, yes, these items I can readily agree with.

For example, in most of the plays you get from the standard rental houses, there are often rather specific blocking notes incorporated into the script. Clearly these have been put in by the author, but is this intended to be 'mearly a guideline?', or should this be considered with equal weight to the text?



What's the period of "The Fantasticks," for example? There isn't one. It's not relevant to the story.

In fact, I've designed a show under just the kind of situation you've described; the play was set in the depression, and the direct felt it would work better in the 1880s. We went from "The Waltons" to "Little House on the Prairie." With the playwright's permission, we cut one line about taking a ride in a Model A Ford.

That being a rather lame joke where an actor makes a joke
about a phone and says "But there's one problem, the phone
hasn't been invented yet", and a stage hand comes out and
strikes the phone.

But that IS messing with the script, and that IS over the line. You've changed the playwright's intent.

Ok, community theater doesn't have adaquate 18th century
Gothic costumes and doesn't want to rent. So they go
contemporary and drop that one line. The author himself makes
reference to things added by groups along they way in a
specific alternate offered for a potentially expensive prop.
Dracula cannot see his reflection. The author reveals that in
a production he saw, the company, rather than construct an
elaborate mirror, simply cut a hole in the wall and put
portraits of the actors on sticks and stuck them into the hole
at the appropriate time. When Dracula looks in the mirror,
they just put up a stick. (Obviously this show is a silly
comedy farce. Dracula the Musical? to be exact, which is a
Halloween melodrama)

There are a couple of approaches to this (having done several versions of this show.) 1. The audience doesn't see the mirror. Dialogue takes care of the rest.
2. There IS a mirror, but it is removed or re-aligned before Dracula looks in it. (Mirror is set so that no scenery is visible.)

So, should there be a mob bearing torches and pitchforks
outside the theater demanding that their license be pulled? Or
has the company made non significant alterations necessary to
their circumstance?

As I mentioned, the case you describe isn't an actual change of the SCRIPT. It's a change of the SETTING, usually permissible within the confines of artistic license - PROVIDED the playwright hasn't set that limit. Some do. Neil Simon shut down a couple of productions of THE ODD COUPLE that used women instead of men, because he specified that they were two MEN. Then he thought about it, and wrote a version with the genders reversed.

The bottom line is that you CHOSE to do a play that has specific dialogue, and when you license the show, you implicitly agree that you are doing THAT show, not some show BASED on the show you've licensed to do. It's not up to you to decide if it's right, and it's not up to the audience; you made a contract with an artist to mount HIS script. If you can't do that, you shouldn't do that play. Choose something you can do without changing everything.

When you license a play, you are telling the world that you are presenting a script by a certain artist; when you change that script, you are no longer honestly living up to your word. You are betraying the public AND the writer; they aren't seeing the work the writer created, and you're parading some forgery and putting that writer's name on it.


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