Female Production of Sam Shepard's True West Shut Down in New York - playbill.com

https://www.broadwayworld.com/l.cfm?id=24087

"We paid for the rights to present this play in August 2003, and in all the months leading up to the production it was never communicated to me that we could not change the genders of the lead characters," Indigo producer Thomas Hays said in a statement. "That was simply not presented as a condition of production."

I'm assuming he signed a standard contract and I'd be stunned if it did not include the standard clause that no changes may be made without permission. That includes the gender of the character.

The producer seems to be making Shepard's agent out to be the villian when it seems as though he acted irresponsibly by not requesting permission to make a big change in the play. No matter how good the production may be, the author has rights that need to be protected.

Stephen Sondheim shut down a production of "Company" here in Seattle about ten years ago where the concept was all the characters were gay men. It's just not what is written.

Doing "True West" with women strikes me as kind of stupid. It's not ABOUT women. Yes, yes I know we are supposed to feel sorry for the actresses because male parts in drama outnumber female parts so why can't Shepard just lighten up and blah, blah, blah...

It's not what was written, that's why. And it's a bad idea to boot. So there.

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I'm sorry...but even a retarded dog would know they can't change the sex of the characters without written permission from the author.

You wanna do an edgy, cross-gender casting of a play?

Two words: Public Domain

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2 of the most famous examples of Authors refusing changes are Williams flying to Germany to stop a production of Streetcar w a Black actor playing Stanley Kolalski. ( Just NOT the play he wrote) & the all male version of Virgina Wolff (long rumoured to have originally been written for that casting)