Introduction

Summary

This book is a historical account about the negotiation of creativity in the American theatre. It is a history of how the American theatre organized its relationships and how stakeholders, and in particular dramatists, responded to these developments. The book examines how copyright law has interacted with the American theatre in dynamic and counterintuitive ways, helping to facilitate theatrical production between authors of original copyright works and audiences. But copyright plays only a supporting role in the much larger theatrical economy. This is a history of how the industry was shaped by the evolution of mediating businesses and the practices they established which copyright has mostly accommodated. The growth in mediating businesses, and responses to these developments, has accompanied enduring uncertainties about the authority dramatists are often assumed to have over the work they create.