It seems we lucky Aussies are getting everything this week...My Fair Lady directed by Julie Andrews, a tweet from Taylor Swift and now...the amateur rights to Wicked! Every amateur company in the country is going to be doing this...I'm a little scared...
Get ready for the next headline to come out of Australia
"Hundreds of amateur actors get painted green and break their backs falling off of ladders!"
In our millions, in our billions, we are most powerful when we stand together. TW4C unwaveringly joins the worldwide masses, for we know our liberation is inseparably bound.
Signed,
Theater Workers for a Ceasefire
https://theaterworkersforaceasefire.com/statement
Seeing the Australian professional production was bad enough, count me out!
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
Interesting that MTI has made this choice. Even more interesting, Wicked isn't even publicly listed as one of their properties on the website. Guess they really don't want the US to touch it.
Don't break your back attempting to defy gravity! Contact either myself or darquegk for a fully sketched out "minimalist" production plan that will allow you to do the show on a budget of just under $70 AUD, not counting the price of hiring performance materials from the licensor. In exchange for program credit (for darquegk; the idea is his baby), you can have the solution to staging Wicked on a shoestring!
Why? It's a Schwartz show and MTI already has all of his other shows. With the rare exception of one or two titles, it's standard for authors to remain "loyal" to a particular licensing agency.
Does this mean that we're going to get licensing soon in the US?
No. Absolutely no plans to even prepare this for North American licensing. You're looking at 5 - 8 years, if even.
Let's put it this way: Phantom's been around since 1986, and they just released the rights to perform the show a mere few years ago. If Wicked goes the same route in popularity (and we have every reason to believe it will), then I wouldn't expect amateur rights in the U.S. for probably ten years.
"Was uns befreit, das muss stärker sein als wir es sind." -Tanz der Vampire
I enjoyed the STC Spring Awakening! We've just had two tours of Wicked though here, would any professional theatre company really tackle this any time soon? It's going to go to the bottom of the barrel first.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
With non-Equity tours a growing new issue, and concern (Bullets Over Broadway, apparently, and amazingly enough, sending out a first class tour with non-unions actors), "amateur" productions may become a slippery slope. Union performers used to be the absolute guarantee -- proof -- that a venue was "professional," a word with ever complicated, nuanced meaning these days. Why would these producers want an "amateur" production of Wicked anywhere, but especially in commutation of B'way or a touring production?
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
You're not understanding what "amateur" means in the licensing world. With the exception of first class tours & productions, which are licensed not through the agency but through the rights holders, "amateur" is defined only by productions featuring unpaid actors; whether it be adult community theatre or student educational theatre. It is not professional licensing which, by the way, makes no distinction between Union and Non-Union professional theatre.
Australia was the first country to receive amateur rights to Les Miz, back in the early (mid?) 90s. It was a huge deal and it seemed to go really well. I'm sure that set a positive precedent.
"This thread reads like a series of White House memos." — Mister Matt
I think a blackbox production with Elphaba painted in bright neon green face paint would be AWESOME.
The thing is, besides being an utter toad of a human being, Riedel usually has the least knowledge of the topic in the room. He doesn't usually understand the content or approach of a show, and is always completely and unfailingly socially ignorant, which makes it really infuriating when Susan can't get a word in edgewise. A definitive mansplainer; it's always painful when he has female guests. I watch the show sporadically when I really want to see a guest, because it's the only theatre talkshow we have, but it would be so much better without this hateful clown in a dadcoat. (thanks ScaryWarhol)