I participated in a couple of plays in middle school, but never really stopped to think about where the rights of the original author and the creative license given to the director lay. In fifth grade I was a part of the play Oliver. In fact, I was Oliver- well the first of 5 Olivers. I wonder if our school had to seek permission to allow for multiple people to play the same person in a role. All of the dialogue and content was maintained from the original. I wonder if there were ever any specifications that my school failed to meet to put on a play, such as proximity to broadway or availability of talent.
She Professor Lodge was talking I, also, thought about my middle school and high school plays. In middle school, my class did a reworked version of Alice and Wonderland that included like ten extra characters because they did not have enough characters for everyone who wanted to be in play. I wonder if this was allowed.
At the Summer camp I work at, we have an “Off Broadway” program. Basically, it’s the playacting section of the camp. Campers work on, learn, and perform a different play each session (of which there are 2 per Summer) and vary from year to year. As we were discussing copyright with plays, I wondered how many, if any, of the plays and stories needed to be copyright cleared to be done, if any. The plays tended to only be open to family, staff, and fellow campers, so I didn’t think copyright needed to be cleared due to being a private showing.