So the good news is that you definitely will not need to purchase the rights to 25+ musicals in order to stage a Broadway revue. What you will have to purchase are the performance rights for the individual songs, which are a lot less money. Almost all rights for individual songs are held by
SESAC,
ASCAP, or
BMI. I recommend that you contact all three organizations with your playlist because sometimes, the rights to a single song are held by one, two, or even all three of the above. Also, check and make sure that your school doesn't have a "blanket license" that enables you to use all of the songs in SESAC's, ASCAP's, or BMI's repertoire. (They probably don't, but check just to make sure.)
You can only perform these songs cabaret-style. That means that you can't have any design elements or choreography that invokes the original show; you also can't use any dialogue from the actual production. (You can, however, include a quick narration beforehand of what the show's about, so that you audience won't be lost.)
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Victoria Chatfield
Executive Director
National Theatre for Student Artists
www.nationalstudenttheatre.orgvchatfield@nationalstudenttheatre.org------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 11-10-2017 07:03
From: Jill Kara
Subject: Musical revue
I am considering doing a classical Broadway musical revue for my high school's first "musical" as I have an extremely small budget, and I am wondering how much script/choreography I am allowed to do without having to pay for the rights for 25+ shows. The plan would be to purchase the individual sheet music. I would like to write a narrative to introduce each individual music piece throughout the performance, but I'd like to add a bit of choreography and perhaps some intro dialogue from the specific shows as well to include my actors who may not have solo singing voices. I have a dream...I have limited means.