“Community Theaters Kill ‘Mockingbird’ Productions After Lawsuit Threat”

Atticus Grinch: “From Massachusetts to Utah, small community theater productions of To Kill a Mockingbird are being shut down under threat of a lawsuit by the producer of the new Broadway production.

“It doesn’t matter that the new version, penned by Aaron Sorkin, is completely different from the Christopher Sergel play that’s been performed by high school students and community theater actors for decades. Nor does it matter that the community theaters paid a licensing fee of at least $100 per performance to the Dramatic Publishing Company, which owns the rights to the earlier version of the play.

“What matters, lawyers for Broadway producer Scott Rudin say, is that according to the contract between Dramatic and the Harper Lee estate, most amateur performances can’t proceed now that a new version of the story is on Broadway.” [Matthew S. Schwartz, NPR]

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“Community Theaters Kill ‘Mockingbird’ Productions After Lawsuit Threat” curated from Overlawyered

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