Contacting Composer/Lyricist...

So I'm (hopefully) putting together this fundraiser that'll be 4-6 songs (fully staged and choreographed, no costumes, no set) from a handful of different shows so as to have a 'set' of each show. People will be cast as one big role in one of the shows and then serve as chorus and small supporting stuff for the rest of the show (ie: a girl is Mary in JCS, Wendy Jo in the footloose sequence and then chorus for the rest) only doing music, no scenes or anything.

To avoid being shut down the night of the show or the theatre getting their butts sued off, I'm going about it the hard way and writing to each composer/lyricist for permission to perform the songs as we want. I ended up having to call JRB himself to get permission to do SFANW as a 45 minute set as the licensing company woudln't allow me to make that cut, and having done that, I'd rather go into this knowing I have their permission and not dealing with the licensing places whenever possible for this production as it's so out of the norm.

What's the best way (to save any time possible in doing this) to go about finding where to write them? I'd prefer to do a letter rather than phone calls cause phone tag is too common in my life as is and I'm just afraid of coming off unprofessional if they catch me in a bad setting or something on my cell, y'know? Rather send a letter and follow up with a call when possible.

Anyone have any ideas or know where I can start my search if nothing else?

THanks so much in advance!

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Ummm... I'm not so sure what rock is going on about but let me see if I can help.

Now, I may be mistaken but if it is a fundraiser I don;t think that you have to get the rights to perform the material. However, if you are doing like you said a 45 minute set of SFANW then yes, you will indeed need to get rights like you did as you are doing a condensed version of a show. Unfortunately, you are going to need to contact the licensing company to get the green light on this.

I think an email is the quickest way of going about securing the rights to this if it is possible at all. Tell them that you are doing a fundraiser and what songs you would like to do from each show, etc. Believe me in instances like this the more they know the better.

My only other suggestion would be instead of doing 4-6 songs from one show that you choose one 1-2 songs. That way you do not need to secure the rights for it. Also, a lot of this may depend on whether or not you are paying your performers etc. If it is strictly volunteer then it should be okay. I hope that helps some!

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right...

well, last time (for SFANW at college) I spent a week or two on the phone for hours each day talking to different people at MTI, ASCAP, all this junk, and everyone kept saying I had to pay for all this stuff.

It ended with someone at ascap finally saying "call JRB's people and talk to them, if they approve it, you're good to go with us or MTI for sure" so that's what I ended up having to do. Only then did JRB give me the name and email of the president of MTI, who then took care of the whole thing, no questions asked.

When I spoke with our agent at MTI after that, he FINALLY listened as I explained the project for the umpteenth time and was like "oh wow - we wasted so much of your time, blah blah" (dont' get me wrong, he's a great guy, I was just mad as hell cause i lost 2 weeks of rehearsal out of like, 5 or 6) so...I have to say I'm nervous about attempting to go through them again, because they just didn't really listen cause I was some stupid kid, and I don't want to deal with all that and have it end with me having to contact composers' people again anyways.

My other thing is that we were aching to do a Hairspray and Spelling Bee set (20 minutes top each) and as those rights aren't available yet, I just feel like it's more...infathomable if I produce a letter or printed email or something from the composer or composer's rep (particularly in the spelling bee or hairspray instances) as proof that we have the rights. PLUS if I go through MTI and what not, won't they make me rent all the vocal materials through them? That's gonna be a hefty cost if we're talking about material for 6 shows when it's all stuff that's prolly found in the vocal selections books that I already own...

Do we think it'll even be possible to get Hairspray or Spelling Bee approved? If not, we'll pick something else but...judging by the shows we're looking at, I think the theme may be something to do with shows that deal with Social Injustice or something like social issues. Anyone have any suggestions for shows with a SMALL cast (I'm talking Evita small with 3/4 characters) that are like, rock shows that'd be fun?

Thank you all for replying to this, it's helping me a lot!

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