It's highly unlikely the licensing company would grant a license for two theatres in the same community with such a short turnaround. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd reach out to the publisher and ask. You're paying for that right.
It sucks for people excited to be in that show, but someone needs to learn how the biz works.
Edit to add: Don't always assume malicious intent when it could just be ignorance. If they'd asked, been turned down, and went ahead anyway that's one thing. But people don't know what they don't know. Still, this is a bad way to learn.
Post-Covid a lot of licensing companies have changed their policies, actually. It’s horrifying. Two different companies that share a space local to me booked the SAME show in the SAME space a with dates a month apart from each other and MTI, to my knowledge, didn’t notice or do anything to stop it.
ETA: In my situation we’re at least 10 miles down the highway from Company B, so there’s a little bit of space but the acting pool and, more importantly the patron pool, are rather limited.
We had a post-covid situation where two companies 6 miles apart did the same show at the exact same time (but one only ran for one weekend while one ran for three). The reason it happened was because one company (the one with the longer run) had purchased the rights for those dates specifically while the other (with the shorter run) had originally scheduled the show to be during covid but had to postpone it obviously, and ended up choosing the same weekend.
Idk why the licensing company allowed it, but only one of the companies (the one who had the longer run, not the postponement) sold out their run as a result. If they had different dates, both probably would have sold out.
You’d be surprised how much licensing companies don’t really care about overlap in school and community theaters. They really only seem to care about LORT and professional tours. I’m in a very saturated community theater area in the Philly suburbs and just closed a musical that literally overlapped two weekends with the same show at a dinner theater about 10 miles down the road.
A few years ago, we did Rent and opened just two weeks after a semi-professional company did it only 10 minutes away.
But we just tried to get the rights for POTUS and were denied because one of the LORT theaters downtown (a good 30 minutes away) will be doing it.
Nah, amateur licenses from all the companies have long been non-exclusive, meaning that any other amateur group nearby can also book the title without timing or geographic restrictions.
People always seem shocked by this, but the licensing companies aren’t there to limit the amount of money they can make unless someone, somewhere wants a show to exclusive. I remember back in 2018 five companies (including mine) all put on Beauty & The Beast and (to the best of my knowledge) they all made money. I expect a similar situation this November/December.
> It's highly unlikely the licensing company would grant a license for two theatres in the same community with such a short turnaround.
This isn't the case for amature, happens all the dam time and they won't even tell you. One of the reasons why it's important to be friendly with the other amature theatres in your region. We've got two "A murder is announced" by Agatha Christie running within two weeks and 15 minutes travel of each other this year.
We had a situation where a company in the same town as us was able to license TWO of the exact same shows as us (regular and jr version) for the exact same dates. We ended up having to cancel ours because they announced first and we already constantly deal with the community thinking we both are the same company
Honestly? I'd consider (anonymously) forwarding a poster with the plagiarized art and lack of credit to your rep. If they've paid for the rights, they'll likely get a pleasant and professional phone call clarifying the rules they'd agreed to (plenty of young community theatres make mistakes!). If they haven't paid for the rights, the phone call will be less pleasant and may be accompanied by a cease and desist letter (but will still be just as professional). Either way, they'll have learned something. Hopefully.
__If they're ripping off the rights holders _or_ the person and production company who designed the Bway art, that's theft, (intentional or not), and that type of behaviour reflects badly on the entire community__ (and can have a morale-sapping ripple effect, as you're seeing right now).
Now, if MTI (or whoever) is just granting licenses willy-nilly, irrespective of proximity and time, and Company B is following the terms of their contract (which doesn't seem to be the case here), just suck it up and put on the better show (despite their crappy show-stealing ways!).
(To be clear, though-- sniping a show that another local company has announced is seriously a dick move, and not doing their due diligence to see if anyone else is doing it is no excuse.)
I’ve dealt with this and contacted the MTI liscencing rep.
They keep it anonymous.
You’ve invested to much time, effort and money to deal with these shenanigans
My philosophy is “If I have to play by the rules so do you”
If you’re dealing with MTI be sure to send a screen shot or link to their event or announcement. It will be dealt with in days
If it's an MTI or Concord show, you can check their site to see which shows have rights in your area.
If you find that they are *not* listed, you can contact the publisher and mention that Company B is putting on the show, but you don't see them listed. "Is this a mistake?"
**DO NOT MENTION COMPANY A**
The publisher will look through their contracts - even though it's none of *your* business - and if they find that Company B does not have rights, they will be very happy if you know of any contact information for Company B.
... Not speaking from experience or anything.
**Edit:** If any company performs without rights, it can seriously affect the venue for future performances from that publisher, as well as other companies within the area.
Don’t confront Company B. That’s not your job. Contact the rights authority and ask them about it.
Believe me, they’ll follow up in mere seconds if it’s a rogue production.
Depending on the licensing house, you can check current or upcoming productions online. I know MTI and Concord Theatricals have this ability on their website. If Company B’s production shows up then yes they have paid for the rights. If it doesn’t show, then I would reach out to your licensing rep. If they are performing the show without the rights, it’s theft and should absolutely be addressed.
Unfortunately, MTI doesn’t give exclusive rights for amateur productions.
In my area there’s a glut of theatres rushing to do Beauty and the Beast before it goes into the vault in 2025, and honestly, a lot of that is MTI’s fault for announcing it in a way that caused the panic/mad rush. I’m just glad that we did B&tB earlier when it was still being done at reasonable levels and hadn’t been overdone in our area.
In your situation…you can let the licensing company know if it would make you feel better and protect your patronage, but at the end of the day, it’s not your job/responsibility. It’s the licensing companies job.
Is it wrong if another theater to do it? Yes.
Is it annoying. Of course!
But at the end of the day, they have people who are being paid to police this.
Your energy might be better spent making your version amazing and assuming their mistakes will catch up with them. And if the other company’s version does get shut down, you don’t want any negative attention coming by to taint your own production.
It depends on the show and the size of the company. Newer shows — which also have a higher price tag — are more likely to have an exclusivity clause. But if it’s an older show, you may be out of luck.
I would just reach out to the licensing company and ask them. If they granted you and this other company the rights to do this, you can complain to them about how doing so will hurt your attendance, and see if you can re-work your licensing fee. (Probably not, but you ARE their customer.)
And if they were unaware of this other company doing the show, then they can handle that.
If I were you, I'd put my energy into my own show, and ignore what others are doing. There are 15 different companies in your area. A duplicate show won't move the needle.
What will turning them in accomplish? More drama between the two theater companies is the only outcome and it’s not a good one. Then if you’re dealing with all of the shit talking between the two companies for the next few years you’ll be asking yourself if it was worth it.
Just move on, make your show the better one and listen to the whispers of “Oh Company A’s version of that show was WAY better than Company B’s.” And allow that to be your reward for taking the high road.
This is assuming MTI shuts the other show down. Which is VERY unlikely. The only thing MTI will do is send a strongly worded email reminding them of the guidelines.
It happened for me twice last year where I had problems with local companies announcing the same show I was producing.
Both times I messaged Eric Grapatin at MTI and both times the shows were shut down (once a week before they were meant to open)
If I have to play by the rules - so does everyone
I’ve worked with 2 people that have been blacklisted by MTI and can’t get rights in their name anymore, and one of the companies they helped run was fined into bankruptcy by them. I’ve also seen the process of a deep MTI audit because once they catch you they will look into all your past contracts and verify house counts and receipts. In my experience they are *very* likely and eager to follow up.
My partner calls this "drama in the drama club" every time I talk about a conflict. It's going to happen in any large group of people working together. Whaddyagonnado?
It's highly unlikely the licensing company would grant a license for two theatres in the same community with such a short turnaround. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd reach out to the publisher and ask. You're paying for that right. It sucks for people excited to be in that show, but someone needs to learn how the biz works. Edit to add: Don't always assume malicious intent when it could just be ignorance. If they'd asked, been turned down, and went ahead anyway that's one thing. But people don't know what they don't know. Still, this is a bad way to learn.
Post-Covid a lot of licensing companies have changed their policies, actually. It’s horrifying. Two different companies that share a space local to me booked the SAME show in the SAME space a with dates a month apart from each other and MTI, to my knowledge, didn’t notice or do anything to stop it. ETA: In my situation we’re at least 10 miles down the highway from Company B, so there’s a little bit of space but the acting pool and, more importantly the patron pool, are rather limited.
We had a post-covid situation where two companies 6 miles apart did the same show at the exact same time (but one only ran for one weekend while one ran for three). The reason it happened was because one company (the one with the longer run) had purchased the rights for those dates specifically while the other (with the shorter run) had originally scheduled the show to be during covid but had to postpone it obviously, and ended up choosing the same weekend. Idk why the licensing company allowed it, but only one of the companies (the one who had the longer run, not the postponement) sold out their run as a result. If they had different dates, both probably would have sold out.
Yikes. That's rough.
You’d be surprised how much licensing companies don’t really care about overlap in school and community theaters. They really only seem to care about LORT and professional tours. I’m in a very saturated community theater area in the Philly suburbs and just closed a musical that literally overlapped two weekends with the same show at a dinner theater about 10 miles down the road. A few years ago, we did Rent and opened just two weeks after a semi-professional company did it only 10 minutes away. But we just tried to get the rights for POTUS and were denied because one of the LORT theaters downtown (a good 30 minutes away) will be doing it.
Nah, amateur licenses from all the companies have long been non-exclusive, meaning that any other amateur group nearby can also book the title without timing or geographic restrictions.
People always seem shocked by this, but the licensing companies aren’t there to limit the amount of money they can make unless someone, somewhere wants a show to exclusive. I remember back in 2018 five companies (including mine) all put on Beauty & The Beast and (to the best of my knowledge) they all made money. I expect a similar situation this November/December.
This is not entirely true and largely depends on the show
> It's highly unlikely the licensing company would grant a license for two theatres in the same community with such a short turnaround. This isn't the case for amature, happens all the dam time and they won't even tell you. One of the reasons why it's important to be friendly with the other amature theatres in your region. We've got two "A murder is announced" by Agatha Christie running within two weeks and 15 minutes travel of each other this year.
We had a situation where a company in the same town as us was able to license TWO of the exact same shows as us (regular and jr version) for the exact same dates. We ended up having to cancel ours because they announced first and we already constantly deal with the community thinking we both are the same company
Honestly? I'd consider (anonymously) forwarding a poster with the plagiarized art and lack of credit to your rep. If they've paid for the rights, they'll likely get a pleasant and professional phone call clarifying the rules they'd agreed to (plenty of young community theatres make mistakes!). If they haven't paid for the rights, the phone call will be less pleasant and may be accompanied by a cease and desist letter (but will still be just as professional). Either way, they'll have learned something. Hopefully. __If they're ripping off the rights holders _or_ the person and production company who designed the Bway art, that's theft, (intentional or not), and that type of behaviour reflects badly on the entire community__ (and can have a morale-sapping ripple effect, as you're seeing right now). Now, if MTI (or whoever) is just granting licenses willy-nilly, irrespective of proximity and time, and Company B is following the terms of their contract (which doesn't seem to be the case here), just suck it up and put on the better show (despite their crappy show-stealing ways!). (To be clear, though-- sniping a show that another local company has announced is seriously a dick move, and not doing their due diligence to see if anyone else is doing it is no excuse.)
I’ve dealt with this and contacted the MTI liscencing rep. They keep it anonymous. You’ve invested to much time, effort and money to deal with these shenanigans My philosophy is “If I have to play by the rules so do you” If you’re dealing with MTI be sure to send a screen shot or link to their event or announcement. It will be dealt with in days
If it's an MTI or Concord show, you can check their site to see which shows have rights in your area. If you find that they are *not* listed, you can contact the publisher and mention that Company B is putting on the show, but you don't see them listed. "Is this a mistake?" **DO NOT MENTION COMPANY A** The publisher will look through their contracts - even though it's none of *your* business - and if they find that Company B does not have rights, they will be very happy if you know of any contact information for Company B. ... Not speaking from experience or anything. **Edit:** If any company performs without rights, it can seriously affect the venue for future performances from that publisher, as well as other companies within the area.
Don’t confront Company B. That’s not your job. Contact the rights authority and ask them about it. Believe me, they’ll follow up in mere seconds if it’s a rogue production.
Quietly turn them in and otherwise stay out of it.
Many of the licensing companies list all their upcoming shows… do they even have the rights to put on this show?
Depending on the licensing house, you can check current or upcoming productions online. I know MTI and Concord Theatricals have this ability on their website. If Company B’s production shows up then yes they have paid for the rights. If it doesn’t show, then I would reach out to your licensing rep. If they are performing the show without the rights, it’s theft and should absolutely be addressed.
Unfortunately, MTI doesn’t give exclusive rights for amateur productions. In my area there’s a glut of theatres rushing to do Beauty and the Beast before it goes into the vault in 2025, and honestly, a lot of that is MTI’s fault for announcing it in a way that caused the panic/mad rush. I’m just glad that we did B&tB earlier when it was still being done at reasonable levels and hadn’t been overdone in our area. In your situation…you can let the licensing company know if it would make you feel better and protect your patronage, but at the end of the day, it’s not your job/responsibility. It’s the licensing companies job. Is it wrong if another theater to do it? Yes. Is it annoying. Of course! But at the end of the day, they have people who are being paid to police this. Your energy might be better spent making your version amazing and assuming their mistakes will catch up with them. And if the other company’s version does get shut down, you don’t want any negative attention coming by to taint your own production.
It depends on the show and the size of the company. Newer shows — which also have a higher price tag — are more likely to have an exclusivity clause. But if it’s an older show, you may be out of luck. I would just reach out to the licensing company and ask them. If they granted you and this other company the rights to do this, you can complain to them about how doing so will hurt your attendance, and see if you can re-work your licensing fee. (Probably not, but you ARE their customer.) And if they were unaware of this other company doing the show, then they can handle that.
If I were you, I'd put my energy into my own show, and ignore what others are doing. There are 15 different companies in your area. A duplicate show won't move the needle.
Alas there is no amature exclusivity from MTI
Put on the best show you can. That's it.
What will turning them in accomplish? More drama between the two theater companies is the only outcome and it’s not a good one. Then if you’re dealing with all of the shit talking between the two companies for the next few years you’ll be asking yourself if it was worth it. Just move on, make your show the better one and listen to the whispers of “Oh Company A’s version of that show was WAY better than Company B’s.” And allow that to be your reward for taking the high road.
It will protect your ticket sales in a small community it’s unlikely someone is going to see two versions of “show A” at the same time
This is assuming MTI shuts the other show down. Which is VERY unlikely. The only thing MTI will do is send a strongly worded email reminding them of the guidelines.
It happened for me twice last year where I had problems with local companies announcing the same show I was producing. Both times I messaged Eric Grapatin at MTI and both times the shows were shut down (once a week before they were meant to open) If I have to play by the rules - so does everyone
Oof. I know it was the right thing to do, but I feel bad for the actors who likely had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.
Absolutely… but also bad for my cast if it went on
I’ve worked with 2 people that have been blacklisted by MTI and can’t get rights in their name anymore, and one of the companies they helped run was fined into bankruptcy by them. I’ve also seen the process of a deep MTI audit because once they catch you they will look into all your past contracts and verify house counts and receipts. In my experience they are *very* likely and eager to follow up.
Man, I hate to see drama in theater.
My partner calls this "drama in the drama club" every time I talk about a conflict. It's going to happen in any large group of people working together. Whaddyagonnado?
It’s also important to remember that, even community theatre is still a business and business can be competitive.
This but unironically. The drama belongs on stage, not off.