BP News

Youth Theatre Corner

I don’t know whether the question of rights ever features large in your thinking? No? And why should it, after all? Its only when getting the rights to a show proves problematic that I ponder the issue either. Here’s an example: the Youth Theatre voted overwhelming recently for us to take a new chav musical called Mikey the Pikey up to the Edinburgh Fringe. However the rights are being held for the time being by the Royal Derngate Theatres in Northampton. Despite numerous pleas for a licence they have either dithered or ignored me until the deadline came for the Fringe Programme and I had to give up and do something else. Maddening! Rights are most peculiar though. Some agents are like Vlad the Impaler demanding payment immediately and dire consequences if there has been one reading without an agreement in place. Others are more laissez-faire and send one half-hearted letter asking for payment and then nothing more. Be assured we always pay our bills, as the law is very stringent about rights but its still a funny old topic.

One way around the rights issue is to write your own show. Tim and I, the Rogers and Hart of the QMT (stop that laughing!) are planning to do just that for next years Youth show. The other angle is to get shows before agents get their sticky fingers on them. I hear that the writers of Brenda Bly – Teen Detective have a couple more shows ready to run and so we might take a look at those too. You see, there are always options…

Finally, both Amy Bellwood and Charlie Woodward are leaving us this year to take up places at Drama School. The hurdle for them is to raise as much money as they can as drama school courses are horribly expensive – far more so than colleges and Universities. We try and help our students raise money by giving them an evening in the theatre so they can put on a show. Both shows look to be shaping up well but any help and support is always welcome. If you can do nothing else, please come along to their shows in July, these will be advertised in the theatre and next month’s newsletter. If you want to do more – get in touch!