Sunday, September 30, 2007
The rights to ‘Beauty and the Beast’ are very much in demand.
BY GUY D’ASTOLFO
VINDICATOR ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s not uncommon for the same play to be staged by two theater companies in the same season.
But this season, three Mahoning Valley theaters will mount the Disney musical “Beauty and the Beast.”
Easy Street Productions’ version opened Friday at Powers Auditorium and continues next weekend.
The Youngstown Playhouse will open a three-weekend run of the musical Nov. 23.
And Salem Community Theatre will close its season with “Beauty” in early August.
“I can’t recall the last time the same play has been done three times in one season in this area,” said John Ballantyne, president of the Youngstown Area Community Theatre Alliance. “This is very unusual.”
Action
Ballantyne, who is also publicity director for the Youngstown Playhouse, said YACTA is taking steps to minimize the problem in the future.
“Through our Web site and our newsletter, we’re trying to get all of our member theaters to communicate better,” he said. “We want them to at least give some idea of what they are planning for the next season.”
It’s almost impossible to completely eliminate repetition, said Ballantyne, noting that uncertainty is part of the process when a theater plans its season. But he said there is an unwritten rule among theater managers to not do a play if they know a nearby playhouse already has it scheduled.
Neither Easy Street nor Salem are members of YACTA, which includes Youngstown Playhouse, Oakland Center for the Arts, New Castle Playhouse, Victorian Players, Move Over Broadway Productions, Potter Players, J&B Production Arts Services and Top Hat Productions.
How it happened
Overscheduling of a production can happen when a publishing house does not set minimum distances between the theaters to which it sells the rights.
Music Theatre International of New York, one of the world’s major dramatic licensing agencies, controls the rights to “Beauty. It is maintaining a 130-mile radius between professional theaters, but has no restrictions when it comes to amateur houses, according to Michael Macaione of MTI. The rights are generally valid for one set of performances, and expire after the final curtain.
Though Easy Street Productions is staging “Beauty” in Powers with union stagehands, it is not considered a professional theater company, because its cast is largely amateur, said Todd Hancock, co-director of the troupe.
When Easy Street held talks with the Youngstown Symphony Society last winter to collaborate on a theater series, they decided to go after “Beauty and the Beast.”
“It was the biggest thing out there, and we wanted to start the series off strong,” he said. Easy Street sold 5,000 advance tickets for its first three performances, prompting it to add two more.
Attendance
Ballantyne said attendance could be affected for the Playhouse’s “Beast.”
“Many times people refuse to duplicate shows they have already seen,” he said, “but the Playhouse audience is very loyal and their support is growing, especially this season.”
When Salem Community Theatre was contemplating its 2007-08 season, it knew Easy Street was doing “Beauty,” but not the Youngstown Playhouse. “We were well into the process when we heard Youngstown was doing it,” said Tammy Crismon, managing director of SCT.
Although her theater’s “Beauty” will be staged last, she doesn’t feel attendance will suffer because distance and time will create a buffer.
“We share some of our audience with Youngstown, but not all of it,” she said. “Plus, ours is in a summer-time slot. We tend to get full houses then, when school is out.”
Season tickets
Crismon, Ballantyne and Hancock all agree that putting a blockbuster like “Beauty and the Beast” in the lineup helps season ticket sales.
“It’s one of those shows that everyone wants to see,” said Crismon. “Little girls beg their parents to take them to it.”
She pointed out that West Branch High School recently did the play, and other area high schools will likely present it as their spring musical in 2008.
“Beauty and the Beast” ran on Broadway for 5,464 performances between 1994 and this year, the sixth-longest run in history. Theaters across the country rushed to obtain the rights when they became available a couple of years ago.