I'm having a play produced as an audio experience - recorded, not livestreamed - by a well-established theater company in the United States. Of course they've lost revenue due to Covid. Any suggestions of questions I should ask the producers about payments, royalties, permissions, etc.? What's unique here is that this recording would be "an object," not one of a run of performances of the material. Would I get paid per broadcast? What if the audio file were just available to listeners all the time, whenever they wanted to listen to it? Is this a flat fee thing, and if so what range of money are we talking about? Any thoughts? Guesses? I would retain the rights to the script, of course, but what of the recording itself?
Well...for stage, for me...for community or small 100 seater theaters....it is a min. Performance fee of $100/performance plus 10% box office, certified by independent accountant, but...Covid...money needs...who the heck knows anymore. I have a show premiering in 8n Tel Aviv this Fall with a little more than those parameters...people need to laugh, so drop the political opinion piece message plays, or propaganda, and write to entertain people...and in my case...make em laugh again.
I produce audio plays but haven’t marketed them myself, just produce the recordings with professional actors and editors etc, then provide to writer...so can’t help you there...let me know tho, cause I could do that with my dozen or so awarded plays.
Maybe consider that if it were a stage production, you would get 3-6 weeks of 4-8x/week....at $100/perf and 10% of a normal box office....then work down to cover the Covid catastrophe everyone in theater is experiencing...and remember karma.
