Many canceled their shows, and Rudin faced criticism for interfering with local theaters. threatening them with legal action unless they halted their productions. Lawyers for Rudin sent cease and desist letters to small theaters around the country - including the Kavinoky Theater in Buffalo, the Oklahoma Children’s Theater and the Mugford Street Players in Marblehead, Mass. It also argued that Dramatic did not have the rights to license any productions with professional actors, a claim that the arbitrator dismissed. The estate sent several letters to the publisher disputing its granting of rights to a number of theaters and noted that the 1969 contract with Harper Lee stated that while a “first-class dramatic play” based on the novel is playing in New York or on tour, Dramatic’s version cannot be staged within 25 miles of cities with a population of 150,000 or more in 1960. The fight burst into public view not long after the Broadway opening of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which starred Jeff Daniels as Atticus Finch. In a 1987 letter, Lee said Sergel’s adaptation “admirably fulfills the purpose for which it was written, for amateur, high school and little theater groups, and stock productions.” But she declined Dramatic’s request to stage a Broadway adaptation of Sergel’s play, and held onto those rights until 2015, when she entered a contract for a Broadway production with Rudin. Lee, who died in 2016, sometimes expressed ambivalence about the Sergel adaptation, which was published in 1970. Some portion of the arbitrator’s ruling covered damages, but the bulk, more than $2 million, is to reimburse for Dramatic’s legal fees and other costs to pursue the arbitration. Lembke, a lawyer representing the estate. The Lee Estate has filed a motion to overturn the arbitration award in federal court in Chicago, according to Matthew H. “For Dramatic Publishing to have been dragged through the mud for licensing the play in the very market it had licensed it in for years was really very troubling,” said Kevin Tottis, a lawyer representing Dramatic. The arbitrator ruled that the estate had “tortiously interfered with contracts between Dramatic and several of its licensees” and that “most, but not all, violations resulted from the estate’s interactions with Rudin.” It also stated that Dramatic retains “worldwide exclusive rights to all non-first-class theater or stage rights for its version of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” And for decades, Dramatic was the only publisher Lee had authorized to license a theatrical adaptation of her beloved 1960 novel about a crusading lawyer named Atticus Finch who represents a Black man who is unjustly accused of rape in a small town in Alabama. It’s the version of that has been staged every year in Lee’s hometown, Monroeville, Ala. The ruling, made in January, comes nearly three years after Dramatic invoked an arbitration clause in its contract to prevent limits on productions of its adaptation.ĭramatic’s adaptation, by the playwright Christopher Sergel, has long been a staple at schools and community theaters around the country. The ruling found that under pressure from Scott Rudin, then lead producer of a different adaptation of the book, which was intended for Broadway, the estate interfered with Dramatic’s contracts, and tried to prevent some productions of the work. An arbitrator has ordered the estate of the writer Harper Lee to pay more than $2.5 million in damages and fees to Dramatic Publishing, a theatrical publishing company that has licensed a stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” for decades.
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