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LOS ANGELES (AP) – In the United States, dozens of community and non – profit theaters, forced to abandon the legally threatened "To Kill a Mockingbird" productions, have been offered a private branch. olive tree in the form of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay for the Broadway version.
Scott Rudin, producer of Harper Lee's novel in New York, called for an agreement with Lee's estate to demand the closure of what he called abusive licensed productions. After a violent reaction in recent days, Rudin said that theater companies could play the Sorkin play as long as they would use his adaptation.
The offer aims to "mitigate the damage done here," Rudin said in a statement delivered Saturday to the Associated Press. "For these theaters, this is the version that can be offered to them, together with our agreement with Harper Lee. We hope that they will choose to seize this opportunity. "
Maybe, maybe not, said the artistic director of one of the theaters affected.
"We are interested in the offer and intrigued," said Seth Miller of the Grand Theater in Salt Lake City. But Rudin has not yet answered the questions that should be answered, including the duration of the offer, Miller said.
At this point, he said, it's too late to put him on stage during the three weeks of the play, which was scheduled to begin on March 26. Miller said that he had not yet seen Sorkin's version and that he should evaluate the scenario before making a decision. .
"I heard good things about the series, I heard people who were not happy about some changes," Miller said. "I will not commit to doing anything that I have not read."
Rudin, an Oscar-winning film producer ("No Country for Old Men"), claimed that Lee had given him exclusive, international rights to the novel's title, and that Rudin's current adaptation was the only version allowed. Lee died in 2016 at the age of 89.
Rudin's request forced the shutdown of adaptations in small venues such as the Mugford Street Players in Marblehead, Mass., The Kavinoky Theater in Buffalo, New York, and Salt Lake City and New York. a planned tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. They had licensed the rights of a different version, written by Christopher Sergel and licensed by Dramatic Publishing Company, or DPC.
The Curtain Call Theater in Braintree, Mass., Has received a threatening letter of damages of up to $ 150,000, a hefty amount for theater tickets costing $ 20,000. and $ 25 for musicals.
The estimated loss of the Grand Theater is $ 20,000, "a considerable sum for a community theater," said Miller. Options are being weighed to fill the "Mockingbird" series.
Rudin had defended his initial position in a recent statement: "We hate to ask anyone to cancel any production of a play, but the relevant productions in question authorized by DPC directly infringe the rights that Harper Lee has licensed to us, "he said. "The Sergel game can continue to be executed contractually in accordance with the guidelines set out in its own agreement with Harper Lee – and as long as these guidelines are followed, we have no problem with the game having a long life."
This sparked an uprising in line with #BoycottRudinplays' rallying cry. Chris Peterson, founder of the OnStage blog, asked ticket buyers to avoid all current and future productions of Rudin on Broadway, including "Hillary and Clinton," "Gary: the sequel to Titus Andronicus," "King Lear." "," The Ferryman "and" The Book of Mormon. "
"If a theater consciously steals a creative license, it would be a thing," wrote Peterson online. "It's quite another thing. It's wrong. He added: "Forbidding others to interpret this piece goes against everything the novel tells. "
The Broadway adaptation of Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing" and screenwriter of "The Social Network", an Oscar winner, stars Jeff Daniels in Atticus Finch, the lawyer for Alabama defending a black man against a false accusation of rape woman.
A spokeswoman for the American Community Theater Association said last week that the organization would ignore the conflict.
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AP Entertainment Editor Mark Kennedy in New York contributed to this report.
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