Ep. 52: A Broadway Breakdown With MTI's Jody Edwards & Jason Cocovinis

Jody Edwards and Jason Cocovinis, welcome to the podcast.

How are you doing?

Thank you.

Doing great.

Yeah.

Great to be here.

Real quick, both of you are based in New York.

You both work for MTI.

Can you just give us a quick one-minute bio of yourself and your musical background and what you do for MTI?

Sure.

Yeah.

This is Jason.

I’m the Director of Marketing here at MTI.

I’ve been here for over 15 years, which means the company is definitely doing something right.

But MTI is a theatrical licensing organization.

We represent the authors of musicals.

So the composers, the book writers, and the lyricists.

We represent their work to be licensed by schools, community theaters, national tours, professional organizations all across the world.

So what we do is provide the libretto, the script, the materials, anything an organization needs to perform the show.

We charge them a licensing fee, which includes royalties, which we at MTI, then in turn pay to the authors of the show.

Okay.

My name is Jody, and I’m the Director of Music and Materials here at Music Theatre International.

I’ve been with the company a little over 10 years.

Before Music Theatre International, I am a musician, so I play piano and percussion, and grew up in the theater, so I have a lot of experience before that.

Then in the working world, I have been in business and training and development for Time Warner and for Walt Disney Company.

Then I came over to Music Theatre International and ended up with this role.

Fantastic.

I think it might be helpful just to set a baseline before we get into the nitty gritty details and just talk about the life cycle of a musical, right?

How does that overall process work, and at what point does MTI become involved in that?

Sure.

So obviously, it starts with the creative process, with whoever the composers and the authors are for the show.

So it starts with that creative process, then of course, it moves into more of the commercial process of how they’re going to market the show, and what the trajectory, if you will, for the show is.

A lot of shows, of course, the goal is for it to run on Broadway or the West End.

So a lot of hands get involved, obviously, at that level.

And then it does its run, whatever, sometimes it’s just regional, sometimes it’s off Broadway or on Broadway and the West End.

When it comes to Music Theatre International, we’re mostly focused on the secondary licenses.

So what happens after it leaves Broadway?

So it may go on tour, it may go to professional regional theaters or large regional productions, and then it will go all the way to community theaters and to high schools, etc.

So that’s kind of the basic trajectory of a musical.

Yeah, and I would say sometimes MTI might be invited to a reading, but we may know the authors of the show from, they may have a show in our catalog or we may know the agents or producers and get invited to a reading.

Mostly so the show becomes on our radar and we can kind of track its progress maybe from a reading to a regional show that takes place somewhere around the country, to hopefully eventually Broadway.

When a show is on Broadway, there are a number of people here at MTI that go see a show.

We evaluate it for licensing.

We talk about the merits and how we feel it may do in the marketplace and put together an offer to bid on the show.

So you’re not involved in the production of the musical itself, but you come in sort of at the end or I guess the beginning, depending on how you look at it, and help them sort of get it out into the wider population.

Exactly.

We are not producers, so we serve at the pleasure of the authors.

So when a show is finished and ready to go, whether it’s, as Jody mentioned, when it comes off of Broadway or has finished a national tour, we sort of protect licensing around a tour or around Broadway.

When it comes to what we do, which is the secondary rights market, which is essentially anything but the first national tour or a major Broadway production, that is what becomes an MTI license.

So we license the show to theaters around the country in a way that we hope does not cannibalize any business for the tour.

So we end up protecting, you know, maybe three to six months prior to a tour stop or three to six months after a tour stop.

So do you have any insight as to how this system sort of developed?

And what I’m getting at, I suppose, is why does a show need to be licensed rather than just purchased, right?

What’s the difference between just having the sheet music available when you’re ready for it to go public versus having agents involved and doing these deals?

Just, I mean, really quickly, musicals are what we call grand rights, which is sort of the entire conceptualized piece as opposed to individual songs or individual lines of dialogue or scenes.

MTI has the right to license exclusively from the first note of the overture to the last note of the show and sort of everything in between.

So it can’t be divided up and broken up.

I mean, if you wanted to do a song from a show, you could buy the sheet music and use an ASCAP license at your venue.

MTI’s license is the grand rights just to perform the musical.

And we rent out the materials.

No one keeps the materials.

We license them for a fee.

We do not own any of these things.

We are in the middle to make sure that everyone gets paid.

And the reason why they license it is we guarantee to the authors that the show is going to be performed as written.

So we maintain the intellectual integrity of a show through enforcement and through contracts and rules and things like that.

So if I’m a theater and I license a show from y’all, what do I get?

Physically, what do you send me?

Sure.

You’ll get a standard set of materials.

So it’s basically all of the written materials that you would need to perform the show.

So you get scripts, obviously, for the appropriate number of cast members in the show.

You get a piano vocal or piano conductor score, and then you would get the instrumentation parts for each member of the orchestra or pit band.

So that is the standard set of materials.

They usually get them two months in advance before the opening of the show, so they can do the rehearsals and so forth.

And then they keep the materials until after the run of their show, and then they do return them to us.

That helps us also protect the copyright, all of the elements that the authors are entrusting us with here at MTI to protect their intellectual property.

Yeah, and that’s sort of our business.

I mean, when people buy sheet music, they see the music, they see all the notes on the page, and they kind of just play it, and it’s pretty straightforward.

With a show, there’s a lot more considerations.

There’s content considerations, there’s things like, is this dance break too long or too short?

I can’t get my set pieces or actors on and off the stage.

So a lot of times, customers, theaters have requests for small changes they might be wanting to make to the show.

And the general rule is, that’s not permitted.

You can’t change the show.

However, we do allow customers to call us and write in with specific requests, at which point we will go to the authors of the show and ask them for permission.

Sometimes it’s maybe changing a slight word, if it’s a curse word or something like that.

So we also, over the many years, have a list for certain shows.

We know what’s approved and what’s not approved to change.

And other times, we simply just go to the author.

But the idea is MTI is really protecting the piece because theaters have a way of sometimes taking editorial liberties during the creative process.

And it’s our job to make sure that whatever they do is in line with the author’s wishes.

Are you also working with the non-musical side of the production, and the choreographers, costumers, set designers, that sort of thing?

We don’t individually work with those creative elements.

We do have a lot of production resources available.

So in some cases for certain shows, we do have the original choreography, say by Jerome Robbins for West Side Story or for Fiddler on the Roof, that we do make available.

But we also have production resources like projections for backgrounds.

We have performance accompaniment recordings for folks that does not have a live orchestra, lots of different elements like that.

And then with our junior shows, we actually give some sample choreography videos so they can teach the kids the choreography and so forth.

This is our new house.

Yeah.

I mean, I would say yes, customers license the rights to a show.

They pay us, we pay the authors, they tell us how many seats they’re going to fill, their ticket prices, we work out a matrix for how much we charge them.

Essentially, MTI enables theaters to do the show, but we also like to say that we like to break down any barriers that may exist between foreign organization doing a show.

Like Jody mentioned, they might not have a full live orchestra.

How do we provide tracks that enables them to do the show?

All of our other resources, we try to make the licensing process as easy as possible.

Our goal is to have as many productions out there in the world as possible.

Are you physically mailing these materials or have you gone digital?

Yeah, it’s a physical mail because again, one of our biggest considerations is protecting the copyright intellectual property of the authors.

At this point, it is still done as physical mail.

They’ll receive their 30 scripts and their piano vocal and part for each of the musicians and so forth.

I mean, we do digital downloads and we have that capability and we do for certain shows.

But I mean, essentially, we have a giant library warehouse in Connecticut, where everything gets shipped from and returned to.

Well, this is a sheet music show.

So I have to ask, are you making the actual sheet music?

Are you and Finale putting it together?

Are you like going to Kinko’s and printing it out?

Or are you just getting that stuff from Broadway when they’re done with the show?

Now, that’s a really good question.

No, we have a specific house style that we use, because it’s standard for the musical theater industry and what our customers have grown accustomed to.

So as Jason said, we don’t really own the materials.

They are the materials of the author’s actually.

Sometimes we have to take what we get from the author’s.

So there’s a lot of older shows obviously, that’s just transcribed music, which means it’s notes handwritten into the staves.

And so in those situations, we just have to take what we get.

But when we have the ability and certainly the newer shows, they usually come to us from a professional Broadway copyist.

And then we take the materials and put them into our format, our standard format.

And yes, we do create all of those in finale or sibilious.

And then our scripts we usually do in InDesign.

And then of course, they go back to the authors for their final approval to make sure that the integrity remained intact.

So we don’t create any of the content ourself, but we copy it and present it in a way that’s usable for our customers.

Could you talk more about that house style you mentioned?

Thinking about it from the perspective of a student or somebody who’s aspiring to be a musical theatre composer, it’s not necessarily obvious how those things need to be written to be up to professional standard.

Absolutely.

No, that’s a really good question.

It does vary based on the level of production.

One of our things that we’ve experienced through the years is we’ll have productions that, those top level quality productions, like there are sometimes that we will license a national tour.

That’s a non-equity tour, for example.

Obviously, those have all of the elements of professional music director, a producer, a choreographer.

They’ll have all of those elements.

But then we also have the gym teacher, that got recruited to do the spring musical at Johnson High School.

So we also have to provide the materials, so it’s doable and feasible for them as well.

So our job is to look at it when we get the materials, because again, usually they’re coming directly off Broadway and written specifically for a very high professional level, that they can make things happen.

And ours is to just clean it up and have it ready to go for all levels of productions.

Yeah, one of the things that I found extremely interesting when I first started MTI, just about the business in general, was that I just assumed when the show was on Broadway or when we make a licensing deal, they just hand everything over to us and we put it in our system and then it’s fine.

But that’s not how it works at all.

Jody and his team spend hours, weeks sometimes, going line by line, note by note through the script to make sure that it’s consistent all the way.

Sometimes there may be handwritten notes from trumpet player number one.

It’s not just making sure it looks nice formatting wise, it has to be absolutely correct.

Piano vocal has to match the script and so forth.

That doesn’t happen a lot because as Jason said, like on Broadway, the director will give a note, and they’ll just make that change on the fly, and then we’ll get a script and it doesn’t match the lyrics in the piano vocal book.

It’s our job to make sure that all of those things are consistent.

The customers, we try to, as Jason said, make it as easy for our customers as they can, so they don’t have to come back and say, well, it says this in the script and this in the PV, which one is correct?

One thing you might find interesting too is, we’ll release a show or have a show in release, and then Jody and his team will probably get notes from customers.

There’s an inconsistency on page 52 or something like that.

Jody will then keep a list, and when it may be time to do a reprint of the entire section of materials, we’ll, I guess, hire a copyist or work on those materials again, to have them be brought up to speed.

But it’s a calculus too, because we have to make sure that that’s a show that gets done enough, that warrants us investing that money or the author investing the money.

Sometimes, it’s usually like we give an advance or there’s a materials cleanup fee or something if the authors have made changes.

And that happens oftentimes too.

The authors, as a show has its experiences, its life and growth and culture changes and so forth, they may decide that they want to make some updates or changes to a show.

Maybe a song’s changed or a lyric or a line or something to mention that is no longer appropriate to mention.

And so a lot of times authors will make those changes.

And then our job is to incorporate and make sure again, that they’re aligned with all of the materials and then send out the newer versions.

What’s it like working with these composers?

I mean, I don’t want to derail the podcast, but do you have any good stories?

No, it’s absolutely fantastic.

The relationship obviously varies from author to author because people all have different approaches on things, but really we have a fantastic group of authors.

They’re wonderful to work with.

They all care very, very much about their work and they want it to be pristine as it goes into the world.

They’re all open to our thoughts and they come to us, especially the longer they’ve worked with us, the more trust that we’ve gained with them.

And so oftentimes, of course, we always go to them for those creative decisions.

But oftentimes, they’ll ask our opinion, what’s your thoughts on this?

Now, most of our authors are very, very, very successful authors.

And so we also have to take into consideration their schedules and availability, all of those things.

So just their schedules alone can sometimes be a challenge because we have to put on hold some of our workloads and start working on another project until the author has time to answer that.

But that’s understandable and that’s what makes us proud to represent those authors or their success.

Yeah.

I mean, I would say almost to a one, every single MTI author shares our just philosophy on theatre, which is theatre is very important and theatre matters.

And we take these shows, which are essentially these authors’ babies, and have to protect them.

So one of the really nice things is the work that we do in the educational space, with elementary school kids, middle school kids.

So if we’re adapting a show for a junior version or there’s a high school performance, our authors usually were theatre kids, or composers, or did something in the theatre as a young person.

So by the time they’ve achieved that success, they want to give back.

And that’s especially true in the theatre.

I mean, I don’t know what it’s like for movie and TV, but the writers of Broadway shows are extraordinarily giving of their time and just insight.

Absolutely.

And very accessible and approachable from our perspective too.

I’ll tell you one quick story real quick because you asked for a story.

One day, it was a Monday.

I was on my way to work, and on the train as we do on a Monday, we start to check our emails, right?

And I had a significant amount of emails that had gained up through the weekend anyway.

As I was starting to look through that, like everybody, even though I love my job, I was thinking, oh gosh, I got a lot of stuff to catch up on this weekend.

But then I looked and there were three very significant composers that I had happened to receive emails from that day.

And I thought, you know what, life is pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I can remember back to when Into the Woods film came out, we were doing some marketing promotions with the studio, and we had James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim involved in judging some singing competitions.

And I was just getting to email those two gentlemen over the weekend and make sure they saw the videos and back and forth.

And it really is a thrill to see a name like Stephen Sondheim in your email box.

And just-

That’s a pretty good flex.

Yeah.

I mean, and it’s just working towards a common goal, which was to help young people perform a show.

So it makes it very easy.

Because what we do is we’re not selling things here.

We are marketing experiences to do a show and have joy and make memories.

It’s not selling a product or something that we tell people they need when they don’t need it.

Speaking of education, what advice would you have for composers that want to get into the business?

As far as educational or?

What advice would you have for composers that want to write for musical theatre?

I think there’s a little more established track if you want to be a performer.

You have to move to New York and audition and all this stuff.

But I don’t think it’s as clear.

It’s just like, well, write your own musical.

You know what I mean?

Right.

Or is there steps on the ladder to get you to that point?

This is my initial thought.

It does all come back to relationships.

So build as many relationships as you can all along the way.

Not only people that maybe help you climb that ladder of success.

That’s all very important as well.

But being able to have that support that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can collaborate.

A lot of authors on their first round will be very protective of their work, and that’s understandable because it is their baby that they gave intellectual birth to, correct.

But being open, because when things get to a commercial level, it’s going to change a lot whether you like it as an author or not.

Building those collaborations, knowing how to work with people, knowing how to accept feedback and change and being flexible to do that, that’s one of the key elements.

But learn as much as you can.

Go to see as many shows as you can, read as many scripts as you can, review as many scores as you can.

All of those things are crucial.

But write for yourself.

Write with that creative brain that you have, not writing something that is necessarily you see as being a success, because the audience is going to decide that.

That’s like lyrics from a song in Sunday in the Park with George.

But the audience are going to decide those things.

So write for yourself and then be open enough to tweak it and get feedback and so forth.

Then just continue to move forward.

Yeah.

I would echo a lot of that.

Just don’t stop writing and don’t stop doing it.

If you have collaborators or a performer, if you wrote a song and you have a friend who sings, ask them to help you to sing it or just let as many people know that that’s what you’re into and that’s what you’re doing.

Because in this industry, there are a lot of people who are willing to help.

So if you’re in high school and you’re a writer or a composer, talk to your teacher and find out what next steps may be happening.

Because a teacher might not know you’re even doing that.

And the relationships you build along the way with theatres, I mean, if you’re an intern at a theatre and then a few years later, you come back and they’re performing some of your work, that could be great.

Taking a step back and just looking at the industry as a whole, are there any noteworthy trends that you’re seeing right now that composers should be aware of?

Yeah, I can speak to that.

A lot of it is technology.

So for example, almost every single show that comes off Broadway now has a extensive level of technology, even musically.

So a lot of keyboard programming, drum programming, just music programming as a whole.

And you know, it’s not necessarily always about to limit the number of live performers because that’s the reason why we go to Broadway is to have live musicians and so forth.

But a lot of times it’s because of the desired sound of the show.

It’s what the authors want.

It’s what the orchestrator arrangers want.

So new authors coming up and being mindful of that, being aware of what programming is, main stage, Ableton, all of those elements, really being able to understand those.

And with that, designing a show for Broadway and designing a show for that gym teacher that signed up to do the Spring musical, right?

He may not have the capability with his production to use keyboard programming.

Maybe it’s financial reasons, maybe she just doesn’t have the skills or the ability to use those things.

So as an author, you need to understand, well, if this show is ever on Broadway, I want it to sound like this, right?

But what is the bare minimum that I’m going to be OK with my show sound like?

Can I do the show with a piano and a drum?

You know?

And understanding that design, because again, if it’s not on Broadway, some people may not have the capabilities to do that.

Like Jason said, we do try to address those.

We have a production resource that handles only keyboard programming.

So they usually work a deal with the programmers from Broadway, and they license the original programming, which is great.

But again, there’s just some productions that just doesn’t have the ability to do that.

So I have to decide as an author, am I OK with the show being performed without the programming?

Or is it OK?

Or do I just say, no, if you can’t do programming, you don’t have the ability to run Ableton, I can’t offer you my show.

Yeah, I think also one one interesting thing, I don’t know if this is pandemic related or, I mean, this is certainly not a new trend, but there are a lot of Jukebox musicals on Broadway right now.

Even Moulin Rouge, which has been playing for a while, I mean, those are all essentially pop songs remixed.

And there was Ann Juliet, there was the Neil Diamond musical, there was the Michael Jackson musical, Once Upon a Walmart Time, the Britney Spears musical, I think Six is like that.

I mean, I think musicals have obviously crossed over into mainstream pop culture in a big way, especially since I’d say the days of Glee and the early 2000s.

So musicals have been a lot more prominent in the culture, but they’re also very expensive to produce.

So I think producers are looking for something that will be a success commercially.

So jukebox musicals, especially featuring pop songs, is certainly one way to do it.

Well, it’s 2024, which means I am contractually obligated to ask you about AI.

They will revoke my podcast licensing if I don’t.

So how have you seen AI changing the musical theater industry?

Interestingly enough, I haven’t experienced it greatly from my perspective.

We know that it does exist.

We know that, again, like I said, from a technology perspective, it’s definitely a big part of the industry now.

But AI, I think, has not tapped into the musical theatre industry as much.

Because all of us that’s involved in musical theatre, all count on that creative human aspect.

Nothing against AI.

I know it has the ability to compose an entire show.

I just don’t think that we’re there yet.

We still want that human touch.

And so we haven’t really opened up ourself to that much as far as the creative aspects of using the AI.

That being said, I completely envision a day when the announcement comes, an AI-generated musical coming to Broadway.

And just the buzz and the news around that, and the debates back and forth that would go on would be crazy.

I have no special knowledge that that’s happening, but how could it not?

And what are the legal ramifications of that?

Who do we as MTI pay?

If AI created the score, I mean, obviously, there has to be a human behind it.

So does that eventually create a new role?

Not a composer, not a lyricist, not a book writer, but almost like an arranger, or the AI manager, the AI conceiver of the thing?

Who knows?

Yeah.

Hopefully not, though.

No, I mean, like Jody said.

I mean, my general philosophy on AI in general is that it can be a tool to enhance creativity, and that’s great.

If it can add to the creative process in a meaningful way, then great.

If you’re using it as a crutch, I’m not crazy about that, but that’s not, you know.

Hey, if I have a composer can hum a song, and AI can record that all in finale for me, I’m all for it.

Yeah, I mean, it’s a good question.

I mean, I know it’s affecting other aspects of the music industry.

What happens when a show has a little bit of AI is one thing, but if it’s totally composed or created by some AI mechanism, I don’t know how we handle that.

Another interesting thing is we’re always wondering what a show would be like in the virtual world.

Compose a musical, not the multiverse.

The metaverse.

The metaverse.

A multiverse musical would be cool too.

But a virtual metaverse musical that does not exist in any one fixed place or stage.

And again, I don’t have any special knowledge about that, but I just, I mean, Start writing, man.

It’s coming.

Yeah.

Could you talk a little bit about the musical theatre industry overseas?

I don’t hear much other than West End about what’s happening in other places.

I’m sure it exists.

Oh yeah.

There is a robust international business.

MTI, we do have an office in London, and they handle obviously like the UK and a lot of Europe.

We have an office in Melbourne, Australia, because we handle all of Australasia, as what we call it.

Because of Hugh Jackman.

Right, exactly.

But here in the office, we have MTI Asia, which is actually run out of New York.

We have musicals in over 150 countries.

We’ve had musicals translated into over 70 or something different languages across our different titles.

I think we always say something like, no matter what time zone, the curtain is always rising on an MTI show because we’re doing something someplace.

But I mean, really, we do thousands of shows and even the shows that are overseas.

It’s in the educational market, it’s tours, it’s professional productions.

We do a lot of professional work in Asia.

It’s really cool.

It’s fascinating.

I mean, things get translated, things get molded for cultural sensibilities.

The authors love the chance to do something like that.

One really interesting market is Scandinavia.

That is sort of an area that a lot of times a producer of a show, they might not carve out the rights for themselves for that area.

So if MTI acquires the rights for a show, we may say, hey, can we, MTI, license the show in Scandinavia?

There’s a really great market there for musical theatre.

It’s not going to get a lot of national publicity, so it’s not going to create confusion or upset any other tour business or intellectual property.

It’s just a way for MTI to start generating income for the author as well as show mechs will be playing on Broadway or going on tours someplace else, and also test out the cultural sensibilities.

Yeah, that’s cool.

What do you wish people knew about MTI?

This is your chance to air your grievances, I guess.

Yeah.

I think from my perspective at least with dealing with the materials, the music and materials portion of it, I think one of the conceptions that’s out there is that music, theater international owns the materials and the content.

So sometimes if there’s questions about either the style or the content of the shows, they’ll somewhat holds MTI accountable, right?

Which we definitely want to try to handle those things, but we do not own the content.

So I think that that’s important for people to understand it’s owned by the rights holders, which are typically the authors or any underlying rights holders for the show.

So even though we’re providing the materials, we can only go to the authors or to the rights holders, or in some cases, because remember too, we also represent musicals that are 100 years old, right?

And so in those situations, the authors unfortunately are no longer with us.

And so it’s owned by an estate or heirs of heirs of heirs.

And so somewhere down the line that breaks down.

And that’s one of our biggest challenges, I think, from developing the music and materials, is just helping people understand, hey, we’re going to listen to your feedback.

We’re going to keep that in our database.

The next time we go to reprint materials, we’ll certainly address this.

But we do not have the end-all, be-all say of how those final materials look.

Yeah.

There’s a difference between MTI’s business rules and the law.

So our business rules have to comply with the law.

So a lot of times, we get a lot of questions in the marketing department from customers about using video or using a song.

Hey, can we make a video of our performance and give it to the news?

Or can we make a highlight piece?

And we as MTI can counsel and give advice, but the video rights or mechanical rights, those are not MTIs to even grant.

So we’re not going to play dumb.

I mean, we understand what the question is.

If we can point people in the right direction to get approval for something, we will.

But our rights and the things that we protect are sort of limited.

So we act a little bit of the hub for people who have lots of different questions.

We get tons of questions that we necessarily can’t solve or resolve, but we pass them along to people who we think can.

So we have an enormous job with that.

And the other thing is we manage over 500 shows, 500 individual brands, and we care about each of them.

So it’s a challenge, it’s a nice challenge, but how do we market and promote, obviously, the new shows, along with things that have come out 25 years ago?

How do we keep them in the public eye?

That’s our challenge, and I think the last point about that is that we are all just people here.

But people who care deeply about musical theatre, whether people were performers or writers or stage managers or marketing people, everyone has a love for music or theatre in some capacity.

So we care just as much as our customers care.

One thing we really haven’t talked about is our involvement really with educational theatre too.

We have a lot of involvement with a lot of the educational organizations worldwide.

We attend a lot of conferences and are very active in developing opportunities for schools to use theatre from an educational perspective too.

So to Jason’s point, just highlighting that, we really look for all opportunities we can to support the creative arts, and to be able to see that longevity and contribution to the theatre arts as a whole.

Yeah.

I think the point you made, Jason, going back to the copyright aspect of it, since at this point, everyone stopped listening, we can talk about copyright now.

When you, as MTI, are licensing the show, the copyright is still with the original writer, correct?

Correct.

So the structure is that you, I mean, what’s the terminology?

You’re managing, you’re distributing, you’re-

We are licensing the rights to perform.

So we represent the rights to perform a musical, and we represent the rights on behalf of the author.

So that’s why they are licensing as opposed to buying.

They’re renting materials as opposed to owning them, because they are not ours to give.

And again, when a customer gets a license, they are getting it for a very specific amount of time for when they’re doing the show.

They have performance dates.

They can’t do the show for dates that they don’t request it for, because there’s a royalty bearing performances that need-

A customer can certainly add a show and let us know that they did, and we’re not going to complain.

We just need to know for our bookkeeping purposes.

When you talk about rights that you don’t have to give, you’re talking about basically all the rights that are not the grand right.

Yeah, exactly.

We get requests for things.

Sometimes we have to say, who’s right is that?

It could be, for example, I get emails from TV shows or movies a lot of times, and they say, we’re filming a scene, and we want to use a poster of the production of Guys and Dolls in the background.

Who do we get permission from?

And that’s certainly not MTI’s permission.

However, we know the family, we know the estate, we know we can at least ask the right person the right question.

A lot of times we’ll send it to the agent or the producer or our manager and someone will know.

So we try to be helpful.

People don’t know what we do a lot of times at MTI, so we can help connect the customer to the right people.

You’re not involved with anything other than musical theater, are you?

Well, yes, we are.

We have Concert Dance, which is a new business line for us.

We are going to be licensing professional choreography, mostly to professional organizations to start.

We’ve stepped into the choreography business.

We do have a few plays in our catalog.

And one of the very exciting things that we have launching officially in the fall, as we mentioned, we have 60-minute musicals for young performers as part of our Broadway junior line.

We are doing 60-minute performers for adults 55 plus called Broadway Senior.

So this is a program that will be targeted to assisted living facilities and groups of that sort.

And again, it’s kind of a customer will pay a flat fee, get the materials and really kind of comes with everything they need to do a show.

But the enthusiasm here in the office for the Broadway Senior project is off the charts.

I mean, watching older adults perform is beautiful.

It’s just like seeing the joy on the younger kids.

So we try to do, I mean, we have to stay close to our core business and that’s musicals, but we try to expand in as many ways as possible.

That’s really cool.

Well, this was really fun.

I really enjoyed getting to know the company more and the business.

Anything else you’d like to share before we wrap up?

Nothing that I can thank.

We thank you for giving us the time to get to meet you and your listeners, and we hope we were able to share some insights that’s helpful.

Where can people find you?

How do they license a show?

Give us the sales pitch real quick.

Yeah.

You can find us online at mtishows.com.

We’re all over social media.

You can just tag us at mtishows.

In fact, I encourage people to check out some of our social media, because that’s a nice place where we feature productions from around the world, just general theater news.

Our job is to celebrate the shows.

We never have to be critical or negative.

We are celebrating our productions and our customers, and their joy is our joy.

That’s really what we try to do.

We just show the fun and the hard work, of course, that goes into a production, but it is a celebration.

Well, I think that’s a great place to leave it.

Thank you, Jody and Jason.

Thank you.

Thank you.