Amateur Wicked productions

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:03pm

I direct musicals at the high school where I teach. Yesterday, I was having a conversation with some of my incoming seniors about shows they would like to produce next year. I am quite used to kids, even the mega-theater-geek kids, asking to do Wicked and Lion King in particular. And I always say the rights aren't available, and that's it.
But yesterday my girls insisted that they know many people who have been in amateur productions of Wicked, and that next year's high school theater festival is doing Wicked. They also knew of several universities that have produced it. I told them that none of that could possibly be true, and I reminded them what big news (in the theater community at least) when Les Miz and Phantom had their amateur rights sent out, and especially when the first schools produced pilot productions of those shows. I told them any amateur production of Wicked would be just as scrutinized and publicized. I wonder if this is just a case of a school putting on a talent/variety show that featured a song from Wicked and then somebody turning that into "My school produced Wicked." I was only able to find one purportedly middle school production of Wicked on youtube.
Does anybody on this board know of any clandestine amateur Wicked productions out there? Normally I just dismiss students when they say this, but they number of schools they mentioned as performing as well as specific names, etc, made me wonder that maybe I somehow missed the news..........

[finebydesign]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:34pm

Well people are certainly doing them but they are not licensed. Perhaps, they're performing licensed medleys of the show?

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:41pm

I'm curious if anyone knows of a school that put on a full, unlicensed production of Wicked.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:49pm

If one did, they did so illegally.

I can confirm that Stephen Schwartz is known for being incredibly protective of his properties and his longtime personal assistant, Michael, will sometimes be tasked with actually scouring the internet (and YouTube) to identify this type of illegal activity. That was at least true a few years ago.. I assume it's still the same.

No licensing agency has acquired WICKED and no authorized materials exist. This means the school is essentially creating their own version of WICKED, and it's not only criminally illegal but just plain dumb. I urge you to not even give this another thought. It can only lead to bad things.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:56pm

I would never direct an illegal show. These seniors seemed so confident that these amateur productions have happened that it made me wonder if somehow a few pilot productions went under the radar.

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 12:56pm

Well, here is a MIDDLE SCHOOL claiming to have put on a production of Wicked and also Wonderland (really, Wonderland?).
North County School in Lake Placid

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:04pm

The Wicked script is readily available online. I imagine the sheet music is there too. I guess the theater departments at these schools don't take licensing seriously. I have to wonder if they do pay for rights when they produce one that is available.

[EvanK]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:05pm

Could it have been Wicked Junior?? Which I am pretty sure exists.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:06pm

No such thing as an authorized "Wicked Jr." or any sort of authorized amateur production. No pilot production. Any production that your students know of is illegal. They (Your students) might not know the difference. There is no licensing available for Wicked.

Updated On: 4/18/14 at 01:06 PM

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:18pm

Thanks for clarifying. I might be showing this thread on my projector in class next week

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:20pm

I guess middle school drama teachers don't know about licensing?
Another middle school?

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:23pm

Or perhaps you are in South America?
British School Rio de Janeiro

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:28pm

Depending on how much more this school did, they may have tried to stay within the perceived "3 songs" rule. And they had the good sense not to call it "Wicked" - but to claim a copyright on it????
High School Bits and Pieces

[ggersten]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:31pm

I guess there are different rules in Hungary.
Hungary High School

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:32pm

There's an illegal production of The Book of Mormon (using blackface) going on in Brazil, so anything is possible!
https://www.facebook.com/bomunirio/photos_stream

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:34pm

Lol. No wonder these kids think it would be ok to performed Wicked.

[SweetLips]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:34pm

Surely a phone call to the school[s] in questions' drama dept. would give you an immediate answer.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:38pm

Remember a few years back when a high school in New York City was allowed to produce an unlicensed "Chicago"? I thought it was a bad lesson to teach those kids that if you break the rules and then cry about it, everybody will give in. But, the show went on. The most interesting thing is the principal does not remember ever applying for rights to a show in 27 years. Obviously the drama department would be doing the paperwork, but the principal would most likely still at least sign off on the check.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/theater/10musi.html?fta=y&_r=0

[finebydesign]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:46pm

That's not blackface. That production looks bigger than the Broadway one.

[MaddieBB12]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:47pm

The script to The Book of Mormon is published (not licensed!) in two books.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Mormon-Script-Complete-Broadway/dp/1557049939/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397843149&sr=1-4&keywords=the+book+of+mormon

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Mormon-Testament-Broadway-Musical/dp/0062234943/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397843149&sr=1-5&keywords=the+book+of+mormon (This is also annotated, and a wonderful read.)


The Wicked script is pretty much in full in The Grimmerie.
http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Grimmerie-Behind---Scenes-Broadway/dp/1401308201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397842854&sr=8-1&keywords=The+grimmerie

So...one could easily do the show illegally. As other have said, its a bad, bad idea that will land you in hot water.

[MaddieBB12]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:47pm

Ooops. Double post.
Updated On: 4/18/14 at 01:47 PM

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 1:55pm

I dunno, finebydesign...

[Emma White]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 2:00pm

Just an idea, but I know my school often does "original productions" (yuck) that are essentially just jukebox musicals, with songs from all sorts of shows. In 2012, we did a modern day version of Cinderella, and we used Popular and Defying Gravity at different points in the show. Some of these may be that - particularly that one where Elphaba isn't even green.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 3:01pm

Plus it's extremely easy to get access to one of the many HD bootlegs of Wicked that are out there- there are 100's of boots of the show. That would certainly show a person how to put on a production of Wicked.

[Liza's Headband]

Posted: 4/18/14 at 4:18pm

Emma White, what you did was completely illegal and I ask that anyone reading Emma's post to NOT take it at face value and to completely disregard it. By performing dramatic representations of the songs, you have in fact broken the law. Not to mention... you'd have to get clearance to perform any song from "Wicked" by its copyright holders and I never see them signing off on that.