For many decades a New York theater troupe known as the Wooster Group performed Harold Pinter’s “The Room.” Recently the Pinter Estate has stated that the Wooster Group did not properly secure the rights to produce the play and has indicated that it would not allow the company to conduct performances of the play in New York and Paris. “When the company announced its New York production, it mentioned plans to take the show to Los Angeles; Samuel French Inc., the licensing agent representing the Pinter estate, said it was surprised by that plan.” The Wooster Group has also been ordered by the Pinter Estate to bar critics from reviewing the upcoming Las Angeles staging of the play. It is currently not clear how critics in Las Angeles are going to react to this requirement.
See Michael Paulson, Pinter Estate Shuts Door On ‘The Room’, The New York Times, January 29, 2016.
Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
