Play Suggestions: DIY Musical Revue

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DIY Musical Revue

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Play Suggestions
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3819
Printed Date: 11/25/24 at 1:54pm
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Topic: DIY Musical Revue

Posted By: kaelidancer
Subject: DIY Musical Revue
Date Posted: 2/11/09 at 4:13pm

Hey all.

Quick question, purely hypothetical! I was listening to some b'way tunes on an internet radio station, and a thought struck me... way back when I was in HS I was in a musical revue at a local theatre... but it wasn't scripted, the director basically just cast good performers and then we each chose what we wanted to perform out of a selection of scores. Now, it was a long time ago, but I seem to remember hearing that we'd paid a licensing fee to be able to create a revue out of any of the songs in this particular catalog, but looking back I'm not so sure who we would have paid that to. I did "Kiss of the Spider Woman", which is a Samuel French show, and I distinctly remember a West Side Story piece in there, which is MTI.

Anyway, if MTI or Samuel French's musical division has a blanket "revue" license, I can't find it... Does ASCAP or BMI cover showtunes like this? Or was I just in a sneaky "under the radar" revue? it's possible... I never really gave it much thought at the time; in HS I just wanted to sing! :)

It was a great show, and a labour of love for the cast since we were able to do songs we really loved, so it'd be a fun thing to try, and would be a great fundraiser - if we can do it legally without *too* much red tape.

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Kaeli Gardner
Johnson City Community Theatre
http://www.jcct.us - www.jcct.us
http://www.gardnerarts.com - www.gardnerarts.com

Replies:

Posted By: oldactress
Date Posted: 3/12/09 at 8:44am

Yes you do owe rights and you will get in trouble and fined if you are caught. You can get blanket coverage through ASCAP usually through your state theatre assoc. or ACT

Posted By: Darren
Date Posted: 3/13/09 at 1:19am

There are some exceptions where an organization could do this without paying royalties. But in general, if you have an audience and you're charging them, you need to pay licensing fees.

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Darren Farrington
Theater Management and Production Consultant
http://darrenfarrington.com - www.darrenfarrington.com

Posted By: MartyW
Date Posted: 3/13/09 at 8:54am

Though not an expert on the subject, I did play one once on stage... But seriously, I have done a lot of research on this subject over the last few months as we hope to do a review to kick of our season next year... Full show performance rights are obviously covered by the different houses, French, MTI, R&H etc... However Ascap and BMI do have individual song rights. While I had a great deal of trouble figuring how to get "Performance" rights from ASCAP, BMI has a great "Facilities License" that covers a very large catalog of music. You can check them out on thier site. The cost is very reasonable and it not only covers concert right (done without stageing/costumes etc) but also includes pres show and intermission music you might use in the course of your season. I would contact thier reprentative via thier contact page. They were VERY helpful

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Marty W

"Till next we trod the boards.."

Posted By: David McCall
Date Posted: 3/13/09 at 12:20pm

Marty

Would you mind posting a link to the facilities license information?

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David M

Posted By: MartyW
Date Posted: 3/13/09 at 1:07pm

Here is what I found out.

The license is based on size of facility (over and under 10,000 seats) and based on your gross. This is covered as the facility license as previously outlined. Again, in deep reading of the rights, it doesn’t look like they want it used “in” a show, or being dramatized when performed, but if done in concert style, it’s covered. Also there is a restriction as to the amount of numbers of single show that can be done. Additionally, even though BMI has like 50,000 songs in its catalog, it doesn’t have them all. Some are held by ASCAP and some are retained by other like R&H who hold a it seems, holds a lot of stuff back.. Disney too. But if you can do without those shows (and you can check them out on the bmi catalog online) then it looks like you can do a show.

For purposes of a revue your theater is considered a concert venue

http://www.bmi.com/licensing/entry/C1164/pdf533652_1/ - http://www.bmi.com/licensing/entry/C1164/pdf533652_1/

Here is a brochure on the program

http://www.bmi.com/brochures/licensing/musical_attractions/index.html - http://www.bmi.com/brochures/licensing/musical_attractions/index.html

Here is the link for the license itself

http://www.bmi.com/forms/licensing/gl/39l.pdf

How I started was sending a note to their customer service folks at mailto:musicalattractions@bmi.com - stating my needs and desires and they immediately assigned me a representative to work with. I had dozens of questions and over a series of many emails and phone calls he answered them all very patiently and completely.

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Marty W

"Till next we trod the boards.."

Posted By: gelcat
Date Posted: 6/17/09 at 3:48pm

We did a revue this spring, and yes, admin had a heck of a time getting permissions for all the songs chosen for the revue. Apparently the Disney rights were the most difficult, and would have dropped over 30 minutes from the show with the number of songs pulled from the Disney songbook in our revue. ASCAP and BMI covered most everything else, I believe. (secondary knowledge as the wife of the TD)

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www.actorsguildonline.org
Actors Guild of Parkersburg
Parkersburg, WV

Posted By: musikman1
Date Posted: 8/04/09 at 4:20pm

I've got a call and email into ASCAP educational licensing, so as soon as I hear from them (straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak), I'll drop in and let you know what they said.

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Rick
http://www.bway2.com/tracks