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To be or not to be substantially similar

Legal issues over the authorship of directorial, design, and choreographic aspects of a theatrical production have been gaining considerable attention in past years, but recent developments in the ongoing saga between the original Broadway team of Urinetown and The Mercury Theatre and Carousel Dinner Theatre productions of the show have raised the volume of the discussion to a deafening bla

15 Dec 2006

Howard Emanuel

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Performing Arts

Legal issues over the authorship of directorial, design, and choreographic aspects of a theatrical production have been gaining considerable attention in past years, but recent developments in the ongoing saga between the original Broadway team of Urinetown and The Mercury Theatre and Carousel Dinner Theatre productions of the show have raised the volume of the discussion to a deafening blare. (Full disclosure: I performed at the Carousel Dinner Theatre in Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel in 2003).

On November 15, 2006, “The creators and designers of the Broadway production of Urinetown, along with their unions, [accused] two 2006 regional productions of the show of plagiarizing their direction, choreography and design,” according to playbill.com.

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Howard Emanuel

About the Author

As an actor, Howard Emanuel has appeared across the USA in regional theatres ranging from The Paper Mill Playhouse and The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey to the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and Houston's Theatre Under The Stars. As a playwright, he has recently completed his first full-length work, Last Supper. As a novelist, his urban fiction manuscript, Naked Angels, is currently being shopped to various publishing houses. He is currently hard at work on his second and third plays. He holds a B.F.A. in Acting from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.