Why the Playwright is Entitled to Creative Control of Their Works

Play ownership is an inevitably complex issue because, unlike other forms of creative expression such as the novel, plays require the direct involvement of more than one person in order to bring the work to the audience. When the playwright is finished writing the script, the director and the actors must take that script and transform it into a theatrical production. This is a relevant subject today because there have been recent examples of directors manipulating the plays that they are directing and thus altering the play on a fundamental level. For example, the 2008 revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a piece that originally featured a character who was an outspoken racist, was performed by an entirely black cast of actors.[i] This change in the profile of the actors required that the Director, Debbie Allen, alter elements of the script to remove the racial slurs spoken by a main character. [ii] Although it is understandable and acceptable for directors to strive to be innovative, directors who take creative license too far undermine the integrity of the play and infringe on the playwright's ownership of the work.

Copyright is protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code), granting authors and other artists the "exclusive privilege to control reproduction, distribution, performance, or other displays of their creative works." [iii] As explained by Louis Catron of the Department of Theatre, Speech, and Dance at the College of William and Mary, the copyright laws say that a playwright owns his or her play with precisely the same legal certainty as a person owns a car or someone owns an apartment complex. Assuming that they have copyrighted their work, playwrights have legal recourse if "their plays are presented without permission or if the plays are produced in a way the authors believe violates the work." [iv] However, copyright laws are often difficult to enforce, and pursuing legal recourse is sometimes too costly for the unknown playwright. One difficulty inherent in copyright law is that while the director may feel that he/she is simply making minute changes in the script in order to create a stronger production, the playwright may feel that these changes are actually quite significant.[v]

In fact, some playwrights have been notorious for their unwillingness to accept virtually any differences between the way they initially imagined the play being performed and the director's interpretation. Edward Albee and Samuel Beckett are two such playwrights. Albee evoked copyright law to control productions of some of his plays including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Death of Bessie Smith, The Zoo Story, and The American Dream.[vi] Each of these plays included a notice, stating "[This play] may be leased only for amateur productions at which the audience is unsegregated."[vii] Since these plays were written and copyrighted by Albee, he has every right to dictate how his play is to be performed and to whom.

Both Beckett and Albee have objected to changes in the settings and casting of their plays. Beckett took legal action to stop a director from having his "Waiting for Godot" featuring an entirely female cast. Beckett said, "Had I wished those characters to be female, I would have said so."[viii] The court decided in the playwright's favor, and the theatre was forced to cancel the upcoming production. Similarly, Albee took legal action to stop a director from putting on a version of his Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? featuring male actors dressed in drag. Albee, like Beckett, argued that "That was not the way I wrote it" and so it shouldn't be presented to the audience that way.[ix]

Playwrights like Beckett and Albee have every right to object to renditions of their plays that do not mesh with their original intentions. After all, the playwright is the individual who creates the plot, characters, setting, dialogue, and stage directions. While the jobs of the director and actors are essential to the presentation of the piece, it seems unfair for these individuals to significantly change the meaning or tone of the play without the playwright's consent.

While playwrights ought to have the final say in regard to how their pieces are performed, it is virtually impossible for a director or actor to create a rendition of a play or character that is entirely in line with the way that the playwright intended. In an interview, Arthur Miller admitted that there were very few, if any, instances in which a performance of one of his plays "hit the nail on the head" in regard to meeting his expectations and imparting his original intentions to the audience. Miller tried to limit his objections and allowed most interpretations of his plays to be performed, but since his Death of a Salesman was performed so many times during his lifetime, there were dozens of instances where he felt uncomfortable with changes made to his script and even prevented these changes from reaching an audience. One such instance involved a British interpretation of his Death of a Salesman in which the play begins at the funeral of Willy Loman and the plot proceeds as a series of flashbacks in the mind of his wife, Linda.[x] Miller advised the young director that this version of the play would be much more difficult to accomplish, and he eventually talked him out of doing it this way.

Although copyright laws aim to eliminate some of the ambiguity in regard to play ownership, perhaps the most effective method of insuring that the playwright's intentions are preserved is creating a dialogue between the playwright and the director. After all, if a director can be sued for altering the script of a play in a way that they feel is minute or in keeping with the general intention of the piece, this can be very stifling for the director's creativity. Dr. Richard Stafford of Texas Tech University suggests that a possible solution to the problem of play ownership conflicts is the development of a "New Play Contract" between playwrights and directors.[xi] He says that this contract would facilitate more open communication between those involved with play production and would help to establish "a system which could provide directors more information about interpretation limits."[xii] If directors understood which playwrights are willing to be more open to different interpretations of their works and which are not, directors could avoid becoming wrapped up in costly legal proceedings. This would also enable playwrights' wishes to be preserved after their death by outlining the types of changes that they feel would be acceptable and those that would not. This is a workable solution to the problems surrounding the issue of play ownership.

[i] Robertson, Campbell. "A Black 'Cat,' Catching an Elusive Audience." The New York Times. 20 March 2008.

Accessed 25 March 2008.

[ii] Brantley, Ben. "Yet Another Life for Maggie the Cat." The New York Times. 07 March 2008. Accessed 17 June

2008. .

[iii] Catron, Louis. "Copyright Law for Theatre Directors and Actors." College of William and Mary Online. Accessed

19 Sept 2008. .

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Stafford, Richard Dobson. "Play ownership and the struggle for creative control in theatrical productions." Texas

Tech University Online. 1991. Accessed 19 Sept 2008. .

[vi] Catron, Louis. "Copyright Law for Theatre Directors and Actors."

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Stafford, Richard Dobson. "Play ownership and the struggle for creative control in theatrical productions."

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.