Theater Resources Unlimited to Host Zoom Panel on Licensing for Theater Professionals
The free weekly gathering marks over 300 consecutive community conversations since its launch.
A dependable haven for theater professionals, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is in its sixth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings, having led over 300 consecutive conversations about aspects of the arts. The series has offered the theater community information, inspiration and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts these gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, originally presented to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of shutdown, and now to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward.
Click here to receive this Friday's Zoom link. These gatherings are a service for the theater community and are offered free for TRU members; non-members may also attend for free, but we ask that non-members help keep us running by buying a $12 ticket, making a donation or joining as a member.
5/29 - One Word, So Many Meanings: Licensing! In the room: James Rocco, director, choreographer, former producing artistic director of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, founder of Thirty Saints Productions (Come from Away, Magic Mike, creator of The Broadway Songbook Series) and the newly formed Thirty Saints Music Licensing; C. Michael Perry, composer/lyricist/playwright, director, choreographer, producer and publisher, founder of Encore Performance Publishing, Premiere Theatrical Licensing, Leicester Bay Theatricals, Zion Theatricals. While the monolithic Concord Theatricals has subsumed familiar companies like Samuel French and Tams-Witmark, other smaller companies continue to offer services and support to writers. We'll talk about different aspects of licensing, and how it differs from publishing: legal rights, collecting royalties and granting permission for theaters to perform a show in a variety of markets, and how a producer can benefit. Plus other sides of licensing: obtaining the rights to music whether creating a jukebox musical from existing songs or just quoting a song snippet, and a brief look at the need to license images and other intellectual property. Click here to register and receive the link.
PANELISTS
C. Michael Perry is the winner of an 1978 Emmy Award and a Best of the West award for his score to the television puppet musical, Cinderabbit on PBS (the Cinderella story with animal characters/puppets). He has been writing, producing, directing and choreographing professional and amateur shows since his late teens. Other "Best Musical" awards have been given to his Fauntleroy! and his Anne with an E: The Green Gables Musical, as well as Entertaining Mark Twain, Jedediah, and Curses, Foiled Again! His An Enchanted April - The Musical played Off-Broadway in 2019 to great reviews, but its forward motion was cut short by Covid-19, 4 months later. His first commissioned work was in 1972 at the age of 18. The musical was written over the next 6 months and produced for a City Festival that ran for the month of August in 1974 near Chicago. He received another commission from a 2001 Olympics venue to create a new musical, How the West Was Done with Elizabeth Hansen (his Enchanted April partner) which played for 8 weeks during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. He has written a total of nearly 75 shows, 40 of which have been produced/published, not mentioned by title here. His musicals have been produced across the USA and Canada, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, South America, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. His musicals Pollyanna, and The Shadow Dancers, The Saga of Sasquatch C'lone (with Coni Koepfinger) have had industry readings, along with a version of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, (with George and Gayanne King). Their Star Of Israel, Coming Home, and Heidi have also had recent workshop productions. He is currently involved in creating the score to Pinocchia (a female cousin to Pinocchio) and Imaginary Boy (with June Rachelson-Ospa), Twelve Dancing Princesses (with George and Gayanne King). Sara Crewe: Little Princess and Tinkertown! (with Coni Koepfinger) are also in the works. Adaptations of Tempest: The Musical, Great Expectations and Little Men (based on the sequel to "Little Women") are gathering interest. He has taught college courses in adjunct and also spent 13 years teaching Theatre Arts in high school where his program became prominent and award-winning, also being honored as Teacher of the Year in the State. Michael is very excited to join the team at Next Stage Press with Gene Kato premiering the non-musical version of Pollyanna.
James A. Rocco is the co-founder of Thirty Saints Productions, which created The Broadway SongbookSeries and currently produces Songbook Live. Together with Broadway Asia, Thirty Saints toured Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to Tokyo and led the artistic team for the US Air Force's 9/11 tribute video There Are No Words, seen by millions of viewers. Thirty Saints is an investor in the current Broadway, National Tour, and Toronto productions of Come from Away and Magic Mike in London. Rocco's theatrical career started as the youngest member of the (Art) Linkletter Totten Tots! He appeared in Oliver! with Ray Walston and Jules Munschin; Carousel as Enoch Snow Jr, with John Raitt; and as Sheppard in Sidney Lumet & David Merrick's thriller, Child's Play. James produced his first show in New York at 16 (Henry, Sweet Henry, at the Mercer Arts Center and the Lamb Theatre). As a performer, he appeared in the original Broadway production of Cats. In addition, Rocco was seen in the International and TV Ashai Productions of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, sang back up for Frank Sinatra, was the lead singer for Herbie Hancock and the Super Sounds, and had an FMQB hit with the song And The Night Stood Still. From 2005-to 2017, Rocco was the VP of Programming and Producing Artistic Director at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Before joining the Ordway team, Rocco was Producing Artistic Director of Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma. His freelance work as a director/choreographer includes award-winning productions of 33 Variations, Grey Gardens, Singin' In the Rain, Yankee Doodle Dandy, (World Premiere), Sweeney Todd, The Wizard of Oz, Chess, She Loves Me, Violet, South Pacific, White Christmas, As Bees in Honey Drown, A Little Night Music, Songs For A New World, In The Heights, Damn Yankees, Pirates of Penzance, Guys & Dolls, On the Town, A Christmas Story, Annie, Jesus Christ Superstar and many more from classic repertoire to world premieres. In 2019, he was recognized by The Broadway League and The Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds for 30 years of dedication, craft, and contribution to the theater. Rocco commissioned the holiday musical A Country Christmas Carol and was part of the creative teams behind the off-Broadway cult hits Nite Club Confidential and Streakin'! In addition, his re-visioned stage production of Singin' in the Rain has been seen around the world. His newest venture is Thirty Saints Music Licensing which acquires music clearances for stage shows. Clients include Stage Rights Publishing, Broadway Licensing, Members of The Broadway League, The Dramatist Guild, and The National Alliance of Musical Theatre.
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