Legal Question in Entertainment Law in California
Royalties for theatrical performances
I'm trying to find out what royalty payments are required for setting up a single evening theatrical event with some friends to raise money for Parkinson's Disease.
The performances would consist of a series of 2 - 3 minute monologues and ~5 minute two person scenes extracted from different plays, with each scene performed by different actors (about 20 actors in total each with single scenes from ~10 different plays). The performance duration would be 60 - 90 minutes and attendees would be friends and families of the performers (up to around 200 in total), so it could be considered a private event. All voluntary donations from the audience would be given to charity.
Do you have any idea how I could figure out whether there are any copyright/royalty issues associated with doing this? Contacts or suggestions about where to start would be much appreciated as I'm really unfamiliar with this stuff.
Many thanks
Alexia
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Royalties for theatrical performances
Although your motives are admirable, the writers must be paid. That is, unless your using plays which are in the public domain, i.e. Shakespear, Motiere, Shaw (?), etc. Where to start? Contact the Writer's Guild and see if you can get the name and number of the playwright's agent. That would be a good start!
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