Who’s that on the roof?

Contract clause keeps high school from promoting ‘Fiddler,’ which opens Friday

By Nancy Townsley

The Forest Grove News-Times, Mar 5, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

J.B. White plays Tevye in Forest Grove High School’s upcoming musical, named for a string musician perched atop a structure.

Chase Allgood / News-Times

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Bonnie McCabe spent last Saturday afternoon busily applying stage makeup to the faces of several dozen actors at Forest Grove High School.

Parent volunteers scurried around, fitting costumes, nailing set pieces together and doing all the things they needed to do to be ready for the spring musical, which opens Friday night.

Posters had been put up around town. An ad was sent to the News-Times. A promotion was posted on the district web site.

The only thing missing was the name of the play. It wasn’t an oversight. Rather, under the terms of the contract McCabe signed, the school is prohibited from promoting the fact that it’s staging “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“I’ve been pretty upset,” the longtime FGHS drama teacher said last week. “But I don’t have time to deal with it now.”

Forty-five students were counting on McCabe’s leadership to ensure that the spring musical came together with the same kind of quality community members are accustomed to.

“The kids need all my attention and energy right now,” McCabe said. “I can’t afford any distractions.”

By the time the opening night audience settles into seats inside Ellen Stevens Auditorium, ready to take in the latest rendition of a time-honored musical that was first published in 1894 as “Tevye,” the issue McCabe has been wrestling with will largely be moot.

Instead of trumpeting the name of the musical around town, McCabe and her students have been limited to promoting the fact that the “musical” was being performed two months earlier than normal.

Posters listed dates and times (and a photo of Tevye) but not the name — all because of fine print located under “special conditions” in a contract McCabe signed last fall with Music Theatre International, a New York-based company that owns the rights to “Fiddler.”

McCabe signed the contract in mid-November, agreeing to purchase the rights to perform the musical at the school for $3,110. The entire production, she said, carries a price tag of about $10,000.

She now says she signed under pressure.

“I was already way behind in the decision-making for a March show,” she said. “We had barely picked the show, and I hadn’t even called for auditions.”

Part of the frantic pace was due to a change in tradition. Until this year, spring musicals in Forest Grove have been staged in May, a practice that increasingly conflicted with end-of-the year academic pressures on upperclassmen.

Looking back, McCabe isn’t certain whether she was fully aware of the advertising restriction before signing, or shortly after. But the reality has struck a nerve with McCabe and others.

McCabe was told just before Christmas that a Broadway touring company would be coming to Portland this summer to put on the same production.

Knowing that well-known musicals represent valuable intellectual property to their owners she got online but was unable to find any information about a stop in the Pacific Northwest.

She said that during her initial contacts with MTI, company representatives were clear they didn’t want FGHS ticket sales infringing on potential income elsewhere.

“I told them I didn’t think a little high school in Forest Grove, 25 miles from Portland, was going to make a dent,” said McCabe.

In the eight years she’s directed the local high school musical, McCabe can’t remember being in a similar situation.

Neither can John Doty, director of the North Medford High School’s drama department.

Doty’s crew of student actors has just started rehearing Fiddler, which will be staged in early May.

When contacted by the News-Times, he got out his contract to see whether there was a “no advertise” clause buried in the fine print.

He found restrictions on what the promotions must include (the author’s name); the size of the type that must be used and what can’t be done with the name of the play (no cast t-shirts).

But there was nothing that says he can’t advertise.

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