Tradition or Travesty?: Radical Reinterpretations of the Musical Theatre Canon

Imagine a production of Annie where the eponymous curly-headed orphan's road to riches is only a dream. Or a post-9/11 The Sound of Music set on rubble. How about South Pacific set in a mental ward for victims of the Grenada conflict? These actual reinterpretations of canonical musicals seem radical, shocking, even funny, while directorial reinterpretations of classic nonmusical works are generally accepted, and often acclaimed. Musical productions, particularly of beloved romantic or comedic classics, that depart from the established replicable norm often clash with authors and licensing agencies. When they escape legal action, critics, audience members, or the theatre community frequently label the productions or artists involved as transgressive. This essay examines several such musical reconsiderations through in-depth discussions with their directors, and examines the legal, historical, and commercial reasons why musicals, particularly canonized works, are often produced virtually identically. These issues are vital to explore, given their implications for the future of musical theatre production.

Legalities and Licensing

A brief look at the legal questions surrounding musical productions serves to contextualize our subsequent case studies. When a director or company decides to mount a production outside the public domain, they will sign a contract with one of the major licensing agencies—Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization (R&H); Music Theatre International (MTI); Tams-Witmark; Samuel French—including terms such as: "Licensee agrees to perform the play in accordance with the material furnished by the Licensor and agrees to make no additions, transpositions, or interpolations of any kind in, and no substantial deletions from, the music score or book" (Tams-Witmark License Agreement).

Anyone who has ever been involved in any capacity of a musical production will know that these laws are continually broken. Illegal actions include changing orchestration, altering lines, switching the sex of a character, or cutting out minor characters altogether. Nonetheless, these choices are made every day by artists working at wide-ranging venues, from community theatres to Broadway. The official, legal course of action is to contact the rights-holders and ask permission, and in fact several kinds of changes have already been pre-approved by the authors. Drew Cohen, president of MTI, in an interview for this essay, says that theatres contact his company every day to approve small changes, which sometimes are allowed, when there are (in his words) "good reasons" (Cohen interview). But as these words indicate, the gray areas are confusing and dangerous. For example, to what extent do printed stage directions need to be followed? Bert Fink, senior vice president of communications for R&H, explains that artists must "honor the spirit and integrity of copyrighted work, [or] stay in the spirit of what the authors intended" (Fink interview). Cohen puts it a different way: "we know [a violation] when we see it" (Cohen interview).

As these definitions are far from clear-cut, conflicts are bound to occur. Confusion exists over the nature of illegality, as well as questions of detection and punishment. In fact, most licensing agencies have explicit wording on their websites, warning against infractions. The fact that these laws are frequently broken does not make changes any less illegal. According to Kevin Scott, author of the 1999 article "Who Owns the Rights? Copyright, the Law and Licensing the Show," more companies, both amateur and professional, are caught and punished than the theatre community is aware of:

Most of these cases never come to court. A private, confidential settlement is made, to the advantage of the side that would almost certainly prevail if the case did come to court. No one not directly involved in the case ever hears about it, preserving the reputation of both the [theatre or school] and the publisher/licensing agency.

(13)

While Cohen notes that cases rarely come to court, he says that MTI can use the specter of a lawsuit as a means to educate. For instance, he recalls a college production of West Side Story that cut much of the music, calling it "repetitive and superfluous" (Cohen interview). MTI required the department to send an apology letter to the rights-holders...