Changing the ending of Rent — Page 4

The director is selling her students a crock. Here's a link to her web page.

http://www.towson.edu/theatre/sadak.asp

This director, or faculty if others were involved, are covering their asses because the bottom line is, they should have appproached the rights holders BEFORE making changes to the material.

It is not just a question of the law, it's about professional respect and good manners. This production made a basic error of professional protocol and whoever was responsible should be apologizing to the students who can't be expected to know better.

Jay, thank you for actually taking the responsible view in this debate. Artistic exploration can be rewarding, but in this country, it cannot be done for a commercial audience if you license a show and don't petition for major changes. I'm sorry that your director feels that she is being attacked. She needs to realize that IPR law is serious and her vision does not justify stomping over someone else's rights. Whether it's one word, five lines, or an entire scene, the contract you sign to license the show does not let you change the text of the show.

I discuss Rent with my students every year. If they have seen the show, I'll ask them what they think of the ending. I'll explain how the ending of the opera it's based on sees the Mimi character die in the end. I ask them which they think would be a more rewarding ending for Rent and how it could be staged. I ask them what impact it would have on the show and whether it makes the message clearer or not. It's always been a great exercise for the students, but if I were to stage the show with the students, we would do the text as written.

Thumbs up, department chair.

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With all due respect to Jonathon Larson, his version of the story is where the plot was changed.

WOW. You are naive and delusional. Yes, he altered the plot of LA BOHEME, at a point when the opera was in the public domain and could LEGALLY be altered.

Your director licensed RENT, a recent show not yet in the public domain, from MTI (which is not the copyright holder, by the way, but a licensing agency which represents the copyright holders), signed a CONTRACT agreeing not to change anything, and then killed off a major character.

A good director researches her show. That does not necessarily mean studying other productions, but it should include studying the show and the intent. In the RENT book, which describes in detail the creative process and is the first place I'd look if I had to research the show's intention, the director speaks about the choice to have Mimi live at the end. He says (I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm going from memory and my quote might be slightly off from the exact words), "I pushed Jonathan about the ending, but that was one issue he refused to budge on. He simply said, 'My show is about life, not death.'"

So no, he would not have changed his mind if he had lived and continued rewriting. Mimi was intended to live.

If you disagree, write your own damn adaptation of LA BOHEME and kill her. It's public domain, you're allowed to do that.

What you are NOT allowed to do is change the text of a licensed property. Major change or not, it doesn't matter, but major changes (such as, I don't know, KILLING A LEAD CHARACTER) are more likely to get noticed and stopped, as yours was.

This is not a bunch of guys in an office whining about their money, or directors who are just bitter they did not think of it first. This is a LEGAL issue. Your director BROKE the LAW, and it is absolutely mind-boggling to me that she refuses to acknowledge that.

You are students. You are young. You don't know any better. I put the blame squarely on the director, who SHOULD know better, as well as the complete failure of education. She had an opportunity to teach the students about academic integrity, respect, and copyright law. If she wanted to change the ending, she should have followed the proper channels and approached Larson's estate, which would have set a great example for her students.

Instead she set the example that you can do whatever the hell you want to someone else's product, and if you get caught, just cry and stomp your feet and cry "artist." Great teacher.

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"Apparently it needs to be reinforced that Rent is based on the Puccini opera La Boheme. @Kristina very eloquently raised the issue that the original ending includes Mimi’s death. With all due respect to Jonathon Larson, his version of the story is where the plot was changed. "

And when Jonathan Larson's version of the story has entered public domain people can feel free to kill off any characters they want. Until then what was being done was a willful violation of the legally binding contract that your director signed, and that your department chair has come out and admitted was wrong.

If you want to send a message using a show then you better make sure that either the text supports that message as written without making alterations or you pick a show in the public domain where you can make any changes you want. If you can't fulfill these then you pick another show, or write one of your own.

I know I'm a bit late to the discussion, but someone mentioned how this production still has all of the themes of the show, including, among other things, hope. How exactly does killing a character show hope? I have seen quite a few productions of shows that have changed things they probably shouldn't have changed, but this far worse than anything I've seen. Also, how is depicting poverty and homelessness anything that was never in any other production? If a production doesn't make these things clear, then it would probably be the worst production of this show ever staged.

OMG...funniest thread in a while!!

and noone mentioned the Heavyside Layer.

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It's NOT over, though, until the people involved understand WHY they are wrong, which they seem to be refusing to do. As long as these young students, who are preparing to join the industry of professional theater, believe that they can willingly change whatever they want in someone else's product without permission, as long as they are doing it in the name of "art," then this is NOT over.

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OK...but doesn't all this just point to how arbitrary copyright law really is?

No, not really. The premise behind copyright law is that art should be protected as a piece of intellectual property for a certain period of time, but then it must be released to the public domain in order for art to progress. It protects the living and recently deceased artists, but recognizes that at some point, it is necessary for those artists to have no legal claim over their own work.

If the purpose was to vainly protect a piece of art forever, then an expiration date would not be written into the law.

True, that expiration date keeps getting extended throughout history, which is a little arbitrary. But, because of Larson's untimely death, RENT will actually be screwed by that date more than most other works, since the copyright of most works goes by the creator's death date, not the date of publication (unless the copyright is owned by a corporation).

You can argue that the length of time a copyright is valid is arbitrary, sure, and I might agree with you. But that the very idea of copyright and intellectual property is arbitrary, especially after only 15 years? I completely disagree.

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But again. It is a question of legality. A not insignificant question.

But there were many productions at my college that took some really remarkable artistic risks with some of the greatest works ever written. And to be told you can't take certain liberties with other works (generally lower in caliber) can be frustrating for people.

I read this whole thread and have to say that I saw this production. Many others of Rent and also the movie. And I have also spoken with some of the cast on the talk back sessions that they have had. I wanted to say that in no way are they trying to disrespect Mr. Larson. In speaking with the director it was a mistake to change it because she didn't know it would have been that bad. If she would have know that it would go this far it would have been out of the question to change the ending in this way. She just wanted to change it in a way to show a different side of Rent other than the same way with different actors. Which is respectable. The way things work here is that the director doesn't see the contract. She is told by the department who oversees the whole process and is made aware of what the production will do. She was not made aware it was any problem until it was too late and way out of her hands. But in an effort to compromise she was shot down and told to just change it back, which she has. The whole issue is because the university didn't give any help. Just basically left her alone to handle the situation.

As I can understand why Mimi should be left alive. You must also see the other side where she is a 20 year old girl, who at the time had AIDs without strong medication, was starving, freezing and was a heroin addict. In real life she would not be able to survive. And if Mr. Larson was around this then he would have seen this death all around himself because of that disease. And I'm not saying that he didn't purposefully want her to live. But it is a musical and they have to have happy endings. I don't know too many musicals that have sad ending. But Rent is about living in the moment and loving the people in the here and now. Not to mention that the production never killed Mimi. The ending was left for the audience member to decide if she would rise in five minutes or if she really did die. And since the show is about living in the moment then that's what the ambiguous ending suggests. You don't know what will happen so say what you have to. Enjoy life now and live your own life. It has undertones of love, and passion and hope but the phrase that is repeated over and over is, "No Day But Today." That mantra is what the show is about, living in the moment.

The show is also about not selling out, starting a revolution (anarchy), and never giving in. So all I can think about is if he was alive, would he have let MTI take over his show? In some ways, MTI can be Alexi Darling. And I honestly think he would encourage different interpretations of his show because he loved art. And if he is about anarchy then what they have done in the show is totally what Mr. Larson was writing about. His lyrics are "Revolution, Justice, Screaming For
Solutions, Forcing Changes, Risk, And Danger Making Noise And Making Pleas!" And that production was an anarchist statement if anything. Even though it wasn't meant to be.

Thank you for reading. And she is fully aware, now, that she was wrong for being in breach of the contract but at what point can changes be made to show the message in a different way?