Christopher Durang - How to Obtain Performance Rights

Christopher Durang

How to Obtain Performance Rights

All the Durang plays mentioned on this website are under copyright, and thus you must obtain the performance rights and pay a royalty if you wish to present the plays in any public arena, whether professional or amateur.

(Note for students: The royalties for amateur rights are usually not that expensive and are rated per performance. Consideration is given to how many performances you wish to give, how much you’re charging for tickets, how large an audience you may have, etc.)

For most stock, amateur and professional performance rights to published plays, you can contact one of two play licensing firms that handle Durang’s plays.

Samuel French, Inc. handles two of Durang’s plays: A History Of The American Film and Beyond Therapy. For information on the rights to those two plays, contact:

Samuel French
45 West 25th St. - Dept.W
New York, NY 10010

Phone: 212-206-8990 Fax: 212-206-1429
Website: http://www.samuelfrench.com

Dramatists Play Service, Inc. handles all other Durang plays, including Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, The Actor’s Nightmare, Betty’s Summer Vacation, The Marriage Of Bette And Boo, Laughing Wild, Baby With The Bathwater, and all the published one acts. To inquire regarding rights (or to browse their website to see the list of Durang plays they have) contact:

Dramatists Play Service
440 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016

Phone: 212-683-8960 Fax: 212-213-1539
Email: postmaster@dramatists.com
Website: http://www.dramatists.com/index.asp

Durang [the writer] is represented by the Helen Merrill Ltd. agency. For inquiries about rights in general – and also for all foreign, commercial theater and re-print rights – you should contact:

Patrick Herold
International Creative Management
40 West 57th Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10019

Phone: 212-556-5600
Email: PHerold@icmtalent.com

Additional information

Both Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service publish acting editions of the plays they handle. (The one acts are often published in a collection, such as Durang/Durang or Naomi In The Living Room And Other Short Plays.)

The acting editions usually include author’s notes written for actors and directors putting on the plays. These notes are usually not printed anywhere else, and so the author requests that you get the acting editions if you are going to produce the plays.
The notes are not didactic advice, but are intended to offer guidance about acting tone and production issues (sets, costumes) that the author discovered when working on their premiere productions.

For the rights to Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, you should contact Patrick Herold at Helen Merrill Ltd.
The rights to Sex And Longing are not presently available; Durang wonders about rewriting it sometime, so if you are a professional theatre who wishes to consider presenting a rewritten version some day, feel free to make inquiries to Mr. Herold.
The rights to the musical Adrift In Macao are not presently available since it is under option for off-Broadway for the 2003-04 season. In the future rights will be available, and again inquiries should be made to Mr. Herold.