Authors' Estates Impact on Broadway Revivals

The economics of reviving popular shows on Broadway is pretty clear. Audiences are more likely to see a show that they are familiar with and producers like shows with proven track records -- two indicators that they are more likely to make back the rather large financial investments required of producing a show on Broadway these days. But, it would seem, producers are not the only ones trying to bank on hot properties of the past. The heirs to the estates of many of these shows' authors, including the heirs of the Gershwin brothers' estates, as well as the heirs of the estates of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II, like to cash in, as well.

An article appeared in the New York Times this week that talks about how they can make money and the impact of these extra players in the field of show making impact what we see on stage. The text below was written by Patrick Healy and appeared in the Times under the title, "The Songs Remain the Same, but Broadway Heirs Call the Shots".

By all accounts George and Ira Gershwin never considered making the family name part of the title of their most famous work, the 1935 opera “Porgy & Bess.”

But their heirs wield enormous power, and in the 1990s they re-branded it as “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” as they sought business partners to adapt this four-hour opera into a perennial musical moneymaker the way shows like “Oklahoma!” have been under the careful management of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. On Thursday, after years of fits and starts, “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” will open on Broadway, updated and streamlined, part of a spate of unusually aggressive undertakings by musical-theater estates.

Few recent Broadway seasons have had as much estate-driven handiwork as this one, a reflection of the rising entrepreneurship of heirs and the affection of audiences for song standards. Heirs are increasingly hands-on in trying to wrest moneymaking shows out of their ancestral trunks: another current example is the producer Liza Lerner’s overhaul this winter of a musical by her father, Alan Jay Lerner, “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” for modern Broadway. (It drew mostly negative reviews.) The organization that represents the estates of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II recently authorized a stage version of the duo’s TV musical “Cinderella,” which is aiming for Broadway next season.

And the Gershwin estates have another musical coming to Broadway in March, “Nice Work if You Can Get It” starring Matthew Broderick, which is an attempt to take characters and songs from an old show (the Gershwins’ 1920s bootlegger musical, “Oh, Kay!”) and refashion them into a better musical that includes additional Gershwin tunes. The estates tried a similar reworking of “Oh, Kay!” in 2001 with the pastiche “They All Laughed,” but it hit a dead end after mixed reviews at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut.

The newly adapted book for the Broadway version of “Porgy and Bess” — but not the songs — will likely gain a new copyright that could be licensed. The estates’ trustees say the moneymaking potential of the new copyright depends on the Broadway musical becoming a hit that producers will want to license in the future.
Since “Nice Work” is a new show, the Gershwin estates will have a long new copyright to enjoy, whereas the rights for the original 1926 show, “Oh, Kay!” expire at the end of 2021. (The Gershwin estates now earn a few million dollars a year, according to the trustees.)

The Gershwin heirs have created pastiche shows before that have gone on to earn millions, like “My One and Only” (1983) and “Crazy for You” (1992), which won a Tony Award for best musical. They also recently authorized a new musical revue of Gershwin songs, “ ’S Wonderful,” which ran at a theater in Queens in November.
But estate decision making has been most controversial in the case of “Porgy and Bess.” The Gershwin heirs — chiefly nephews and grand-nephews of George and Ira, who had no children of their own — sought a Broadway-suitable “Porgy” to license to other musical producers worldwide with the hopes of earning millions of dollars before the right to the famous songs expire in 2030.

With that in mind they encouraged the trimming of the opera nearly by half, and approved some updating, including a reconciliation scene at the end. (The goat-pulled cart of the disabled Porgy is out; a cane and leg braces are in.) If all goes well, they may pursue a movie.

“Our responsibilities are to not have ‘Porgy and Bess’ stuck in an attic, to open up the property to younger generations, and to make money for the families,” said Jonathan Keidan, a 38-year-old digital media executive whose grandmother was George and Ira’s sister and who is now a trustee of George’s estate.

In August, Stephen Sondheim attacked some of the artistic changes, and recently has narrowed his invective to “the greedy Gershwin estate” — apparently referring to the collaborative efforts of the George and Ira estates. Mr. Sondheim declined to comment for this article, but other theater artists said that estate management was a major concern given that artists’ legacies would be at stake.

“I do think that, as composers and writers, we should leave pretty specific instructions to our estates about how we want our work to be protected,” said John Kander, the 84-year-old composer who, with Fred Ebb, wrote the scores for hits like “Cabaret” and “Chicago.”

Several of the Gershwins’ trustees — as well as those of Lerner and Burton Lane, the “Clear Day” composer — dismissed the idea that money was their primary motivator. But they were also not bashful in saying that money was one factor and described themselves as business-minded stewards more than as artistic tastemakers.

“I never felt we were capable producers, but we have similar impulses to producers in the sense that I want to get these shows performed and I’m driven to try to make money,” said Michael Strunsky, a former construction-firm executive and the trustee of Ira Gershwin’s estate. (His father was the brother of Ira’s wife.)

Executors can decide to withhold rights altogether or else demand contractual approvals over actors, directors, orchestrations and other artistic elements. More and more estates seek as many approvals as possible, given the rise of experimental theater that stresses auteur visions, and producers grant as few approvals as they can in the interest of artistic control. Estates do not have to disclose finances publically, and the structure of musical-theater estates vary, as does the size of the periodic checks cut to the heirs.

If the executors sour on a revival, they can rarely close it outright; instead, they deny an extension of the rights, so the show has a limited run. For instance, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization — which became part of a Dutch conglomerate in 2009 — refused an extension to Anne Bogart’s memorable student production of “South Pacific” at New York University in 1984, which was set in a rehab ward for psychologically damaged war veterans.

“Her concept was intriguing when it was presented to the estate,” recalled the organization’s president, Theodore S. Chapin, “but the production ended up with Nellie Forbush in a straitjacket repeating, ‘I’m in love,’ for practically a half hour.”

In the Broadway “Cinderella” project the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization hopes for a new, revenue-generating hit to add to the songwriters’ catalog decades after their deaths. (The pair’s musicals now earn more than $10 million a year.) Mr. Chapin said he authorized a revisionist updating of the “Cinderella” book, with a more assertive heroine, to be done by Douglas Carter Beane, because he had faith in Mr. Beane and the producers.

“An old show that feels familiar can turn off Broadway audiences,” Mr. Chapin said. “But you can’t go so far that you totally undermine the spirit and soul of the original.”

Marc G. Gershwin, son of George and Ira’s brother, Arthur, and a stockbroker by training, said he took an “entrepreneurial approach” to the brothers’ works, allowing experimental productions of “Porgy and Bess” like one set in Los Angeles after an earthquake (with Porgy on a motorcycle, no less). He said he would draw the line somewhere, for example if someone proposed an all-white production of the opera.

He and his fellow trustees worked for years to try to create a musical-theater version of “Porgy and Bess,” with the director Trevor Nunn’s production in London in 2006 coming close to success. But that outing lacked star power and used dialogue from the earlier novel and stage play about Porgy by DuBose Heyward, who wrote the book for the opera as well as the lyrics with Ira Gershwin. The new Broadway version, by contrast, includes new dialogue by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and stars a four-time Tony winner, Audra McDonald, as Bess.

The original will always remain available for opera companies, Marc Gershwin noted, “but that doesn’t mean it has to be a museum piece.”