What are some musicals that you can get rights/permission to?

Question

In February, my drama club goes to an annual Thespian Conference. I'm wanting to do an IE, either a solo, duet with a girl, or a duet with a boy. I myself am a girl.

To perform an IE, the biggest requirement held by the Conference is that you get the play's permission to perform a scene or song from. This is the part that confuses me. Firstly, I don't know whether "permission to do a single scene or song" translates to "getting the rights", so I don't know if that would mean some plays are entirely restricted or not.

Which leads me to this: What is a list of musicals that allow you to get permission for performance-- I don't know if it makes a difference, but it would only be for a single song. For instance, could I get it from Spring Awakening? Or are all relatively new shows completely off limits?

And a note: I'm wanting the show to be sort of well-known, sort of not, as this would be a performance that, if rated high enough, could be performed in front of the entire conference. I'm wanting something that the theatre kids would recognize, but not something so popular that would make them hang their heads and say, "Oh, not THIS again." (Like, say Wicked. Wicked is just... too big for this, even if the rights are allowed.)

Thank-you so much!!

Hayley. : )

Answer 1

http://www.mtishows.com/default_HOME.asp

This is Music Theatre International's website which own the rights to many Broadway musicals, especially the more modern ones (70s and newer).

Answer 2

The curerent performing musicals are usually not available until after their worldwide tours, but performing a song does not grant you rights, it gives you a bill, that is payed to the artists /writers, through the performing rights society, in Berners street in London, most songs have an industry standard fee, payable to them, you can buy a licence from them as well, that brings a quite reasonable annual fee, and allows you to perform all the works that they deal with, more recent and popular songs are more expensive, but can be sung for a one off fee, the rights can be bought outright, from the writers themselves, and the fees for future performances then accrue to the new owners of those rights, often for bigger names these can be bought at auction, but expect to pay millions, for those ones, like Michael Jackson did, for Paul McCartneys song lyrics....but look them up on the net....under" PRS".....

Answer 3

most shows that are currently on broadway are off limits.there are a couple different companies that hold the right to different shows. like tans-witmark and MTI(musical theatre international). they both have websites with instructions of how to obtain the rights to a show. good luck!

Answer 4

You don't need the rights to the whole show to perform one song from it, and it's usually much easier to get the rights to a single song than the whole show - not to mention cheaper!  Current "big" shows are sometimes available, I know you can get permission for the odd song from Wicked (though why you'd want to, I don't know!).  From memory, the ones that are very pedantic about it are the Really Useful Group (Andrew Lloyd Webber's company who hold the rights to all his shows) and Cameron Mackintosh - not sure what he holds the rights to apart from Oliver.  Check out www.mtishows.com or www.tams-witmark.com which are the two biggest licence holders and you should be able to find some info about licencing a single song.  There's also loads and loads of info about shows on those pages so it should help you find something you like.