totally slanderous email

[Glorious Amok]

i sent out a totally slanderous email today. because an actor is doing a rip off of the show i just did, my first show, he even stole the costume i made for him. he's wearing it in the poster.

when he first brought me this script and asked me if i would be interested in directing it, i read it and got all sorts of ideas for show. radical choices, i took a traditionally female character and cast it with a gay male. i cast the 2 soldiers as females. i wrote a bellydance for the dance of the 7 veils to beautiful arabic techno music. i invented a death ring ceremony for the queen and the executioner. i combined small characters into fewer, more substantial characters.

the show was great, a cast of 12 and a crew of 5 or so, we even got funding. the show opened slow, but we sold out on closing night. i was so proud, everyone worked so hard, and we pulled off a really big, beautiful production.

but this guy who brought me the script, i knew when he brought it to me what he wanted. he stared way too long and not always at my eyes. he kept inviting me out to dinners so we could talk more about the script. i went. he kept inviting me to stay out later. i didn't. i kept him up to date by emails instead.

just 4 months later he's staging his own version of our show. he's playing the same character i cast him as, and he stole the costume i made, not that it was extravagant, his character lived in a well. last night, i see these posters up all over town, and the photographs with him and some other actress playing the title character are the spitting image of the photos i took.

days after our cast party on closing night, he started phoning around to the cast, saying he wanted to do the show again, but without me. they phoned me and told me what he was up to. he made these bizarre clandestine phonecalls, hanging up suddenly when it seemed he was caught off guard.

and it's partially like an insult to me that he thought i didn't do a good enough job directing. but he obviously was inspired by my ideas or he wouldn't be copying my production so closely. but i sent out an angry email to everyone today who knew about the show. what mostly worries me is that now i've engaged his attention further by broadcasting this angry email, and who knows what i'm up for next?

is he targetting me or am i targetting him? or myself?

[judih]

he's ripping off. you're reacting. What else can you do?
Could you sue? bring in lawyers, etc?
Would you want to engage in legal battles?

Isn't pro-active e-mail a constitutional must in this situation?

What does everyone else think? Studio-8'ers? What would you do?

[YABYUM]

If in fact, he stole my ideas?
I'd see other no other opposite reaction except for me kicking his ass in front of a few people,
maybe introducing his ribs to Doc Marten.
Thats just me. I hate sending e-mail.

[judih]

e-mail is the polite way to doc marten.

a modern version of 'sticks and stones'

[YABYUM]

Was it Fig Nueton who said "for every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction"?

There is no mention of being polite. Opposite.......not polite.

I thought 'sticks and stones' was just a little haiku that kids recited when being picked on. I would imagine I could do far greater damage should I choose to involve sticks and stones. I'd rather keep it fair, like Dally and Soda Pop Curtis.

[judih]

But then again, fairness has nothing to do with it. Can ideas have copyrights? Glorious is facing her own ideas, the very costume and photos and her innovations being stolen by another. Not even a hint of artistic acknowledgement.

There must be a law within entertainment law that protects live theatre. Law was invented to supercede 'an eye for an eye'. Glorious requires justice, not revenge.

[Glorious Amok]

i couldn't and wouldn't bring in lawyers. i feel like i can execute my own brand of justice. one of the names on my mailing list however, is the artistic director at the venue of his closing show. that was my big gun.

and most of his posters have been ripped down and disposed of. some which surprisingly bear the phrase "ART THEIF" scrawled in black magic marker are being left up.

and i sent him a personal email booing his complete lack of artistic integrity.

[stilltrucking]

It is sad my bohemian pal
My first reaction is yabyum's
Kick his ass but Judih is right


Be relentless,
Hammer him with your words until he cries uncle.
Make him rue the day

[Lightning Rod]

Kari Kari Kari

When I read your email yesterday morning, I went
hmmmm, how familiar.

It's the same in theater or music or any creative enterprise
they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it's not
Theft is the sincerest form of flattery.

When I got out of the joint, a friend showed me a video tape
It was my former guitar player performing at a cable TV station
He had stolen my act. Not only was he using my songs and my poetry and my gag lines
But he had stolen my whole personna
It was eerie to watch somebody imitating me

This has happened to me on more than one occasion, having someone steal my creative product
When asked if I was mad about it
I just said,
"No, because you know what? There's more where that came from."

[gypsyjoker]

Yes LR I was thinking the same thing, but I did not know how to say it. So I said what I thought she wanted to hear.
I lived in in Music City (ha) it was amazing the paranoia among songwriters. jitterbug used to sing a song about jesus in disguise, not too long afterwards there was a song on the radio about an angel in disguise, sounded pretty close. I think it was willie nelson who said or wrote something about "lets all get together and steal each other's songs. I don't think GA is going to let it go so easy though. Every time I use the phrase "tented pants" or a "dialogue of the skin" or a couple of others "crumbs of happiness" almost to many to number. I remember the people who first used the phrase, I want to put a footnote or something. We are all feeding off each other here.

BTW
this is my Geoff ID, i created it just for him.

[diesel dyke]

LR when judih said justice she meant $$$. I mean I think that is what she meant. GA could use the money. I try to make a special effort to hear judih, she got ears buddy Does the guy think just because GA is a woman he can get away with it? A issue of being exploited? My reactions would closer to yours and yabyum’s But if I was a woman I might see it different, not to use a cliché but Mars?Venus

Wondering what transpired since I made a quick trip to new berlin to deliver some lemons to my baby sister’s. Is this going to relate in anyway?

[judih]

hey there di dy

justice is many things.
in this case, i'd be satisfied with artistic acknowledgement - credit for using Glorious' ideas.

Plagiarism is plagiarism, stealing is stealing. Asking permission is showing respect. And since i'm a kibbutznik and still think in terms of fairplay, human decency does not have to be measured in dollar signs.

Ask first, wait for permission and then use.
Give credit.
That's the minimum and that would be okay with me.

j

[mtmynd]

Target: Kari

1) Should the show go on - girlcot the show.

2) Send him a bill for your costume.

3) Send him a bill for your pictures.

4) Show up with posters "I Wrote This Show! It's Great!"

[Arcadia]

Let´s see...

a) maybe a sub-estimation of the work of the director in terms of "nobody would say anything about it, there are only some details".

b) have you had problems or something with him?. To put you off the proyect could be some form of revenge.

c) He´s stealing with deliberation your work and he want to make personal profit from it.

I´m for c option.
Since don´t doing nothing about it´s also to do something, do something.
The email thing is something. To let the other actors and the public of his show know what happens it´s also something.
I´m not for being silent in this case.
A friend of mine sent three articles to a magazine some months ago and then they appeared signed by the director of the magazine... When he told us about it, we were very angry but he showed terrible cold. I think he had to do more about it.
In collective creation the individual autorship doesn´t matter, is the group, the whole what it counts. But in other conditions of production to atribute yourself the work of others and don´t mention them or whatever is simply stealing and explotation.

[stilltrucking]

Yes I did not think I quite understood what you meant. But like LR said it would be nice to have a cut. Life here in the USSR living on the bottom line. it would be nice and I wish it was true here. Norman Thomas and a socialist dream. May your kibbutz always be light unto the greedy.

Arcadia that is brilliant