Print Email this page Theater  

Pryor Cashman has a wide-ranging, comprehensive practice in live theater relating to all types of productions including Broadway, Off Broadway, touring productions, foreign productions and non-profit theaters. We represent producers, investors and creative personnel.

The firm has extensive experience in negotiating stage rights agreements including agreements for acquiring stage rights in films, books and other underlying properties and option agreements between playwrights and producers. 

We negotiate contracts on behalf of producers and creative personnel relating to the services of composers, lyricist, playwrights, directors, designers and performers.

Pryor Cashman provides financial advice, including preparation and review of offering papers and investment agreements, for theatrical productions. We negotiate agreements for subsidiary rights with motion picture studios and with companies that produce stock and amateur productions, foreign productions and tours.

We also handle litigation and provide labor advice for one of the major theatrical unions, The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. The firm represented stage director Joe Mantello in a landmark case which established the copyrightability of stage directions and has been involved in other litigations, including two involving the Broadway musical Urinetown.

Our attorneys are connected to the theater community by serving on the boards of non-profit theaters throughout the country, and we provide pro bono legal services to several of them.

Our work includes:

• Represented the producers or co-producers of the Broadway plays Annie, Working, Alone Together, Electra and the Off-Broadway productions Visiting Mr. Green and The World Goes Round: The Songs of Kander & Ebb 
• Negotiated foreign production and foreign tours agreements for Annie, Victor Victoria, Chorus Line and 42nd Street
• Represented composer Jim Steinman in connection with his musicals Dance of the Vampires and Whistle Down the Wind
• Represented performer/composer Adam Schlesinger (of Fountains of Wayne) in connection with a proposed Broadway musical
• Represented performers/songwriters Ashford & Simpson in connection with composing songs for a proposed Broadway musical
• Represented the owners of Elvis Presley’s music in connection with the Broadway musical All Shook Up, including its national tour and stock and amateur rights agreements
• Represent multi-Tony nominated orchestrator Harold Wheeler