R & H halts high school production of ALW's Phantom — Page 2

Can you report them after the show is over so it is just a fine? I mean there is an extremly good chance that the students have nothing to do with it and know nothing about the contract rules, I didn't even really know about them until after high school, and if they were for some reason shut down I would feel really bad for all the hard work they put into it. If there isn't a way to do it after the fact....you should either turn them in OR see if you can arrange a meeting with them and explain the contract rules to the students so they get a lesson out of it

>>>Would that happen to be the group in California?

I have no idea about the dvd part, but they are charging $15 admission and there's no school that I know of involved.

I think they were in CA. It was on several Phantom boards. They are charging admission, whoever asked. Someone I know found out about the DVD part.

Updated On: 11/15/05 at 07:23 PM

EganFan2...we're certainly thinking of the same group, then. I think it originated with the Tarts at gerardbutler.net.

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The school edition may use the Cosette logo, bout only if it is the logo in which she holds the school books in her hands. However if she is not holding the books, and the rest of the stuff is missing then yeah, its breach of contract. But don't forget they may be getting charged per character on their posters, or maybe a student was put incharge of making them and the details were accidentaly looked over. MTI is one of the major places to obtain rights for high schools and if they get banned for doing shows over an advertisement technicality alot of kids will miss out on doing great theatre when they aren't at fault. Save turning them in for when they re-write a show or something big like that. Don't skrew over years worth of studens because you know the technicalities that someone else overlooked.

Oh how I miss high school politics!!!!!!!!!

Michael Bennett, I'm with you-this would have been one entertaining bootleg. Yikes.

It seems that some schools will pull anybody off the street and let them be a theatre director. No one who knew a damn thing about theatre would let that kind of thing continue. Kids want to sing Phantom? Let them do it in the talent show or choir or something. (Although that might be illegal too)

Maybe these kids could benefit from doing a show that they could have the rights to on paper, like, I don't know, the eight million there are to choose from? What ever happened to Bye Bye Birdie?

I kind of agree with Bobby Bubby. I think we take for granted the assumed knowledge that HS directors have about rights. It's entirely possible that this was not an intentional act of "thievery", but just a mistake. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm also saying that maybe we shouldn't pass judgement without really knowing what happened. That's sort of the reason I hate watching the news...

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When I worked at Samuel French, I was always shocked how many high school drama teachers would call up and then freak out when we would ask them about how many performances they were doing, etc. - standard questions, and they honestly didn't believe that they had to pay for rights, just because they were a school...

Though it can't be done as a stage production, I know that there is a legal, choral version of some of the music from ALW's Phantom available. It doesn't include "The Music of the Night," but does include "The Phantom of the Opera" (including the high E),and "All I Ask of You". Sorry, I don't remember any other details as I saw the collection several years ago.

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