Posted by Joel Walton at 206-169-45-183.gen.twtelecom.net on December 09, 2003 at 14:41:54:
My name is Joel Walton and I was one of the actors that appeared in a stage adaptation of “Clerks” that up until recently was performed at a theatre called The Empty Space in Bakersfield, California. My friend, writer/director Roger Mathey, and I are huge fans of the movie and particularly the script, and had talked for some time (years) about adapting it for the stage.
About two years ago, we sought to go about getting the rights or at least some sort of formal permission before continuing ahead with the project. Little did we know how formidable the task of securing rights would be. We started by attempting to contact View Askew productions. Our efforts went unnoticed by the principal power players responsible for such permission. In short, we were ignored. We were told by some “unofficial” individuals that the rights to “Clerks” were now owned by Miramax Pictures, and any rights would need to be secured solely from them. We were also told in no uncertain terms that the idea had come up several times, but that if we were not making any money on the production we could proceed without any fear of legal recourse. These casual assurances did not ease our minds. Roger went on to contact Miramax Pictures who stated they did indeed own the rights to the movie, but once again any stage productions based on their pictures were allowed as long as they made no profit.
So we started the process of finding a non-profit theatre company to stage our tribute to Kevin Smith and “Clerks”. The Empty Space, a Bakersfield based non-profit theatre company that boasts free theatre, seemed the perfect place to set the tribute as we didn’t have to charge admission. We held auditions, rehearsed in the late night spot for 4 weeks (For some of us with regular full time jobs and school, this was quite a sacrifice. But we did it because we loved the script and the project), and opened the show. And it was good. We were proud of it. These weren’t professional actors, mind you. Hell, some had never acted in a show in their life. But they were committed to the project, loved the script, and were all big fans of Kevin Smith.
The first weekend we were reviewed by Danielle Belton in Bakersfield’s local newspaper The Bakersfield Californian. Shortly after the review was printed in the paper the following weekend, we received a Cease & Desist letter from Mr. John Sloss, Kevin Smith’s attorney, admonishing us to discontinue the show immediately for not procuring exclusive rights from Mr. Smith. The letter wielded scare tactics to the tune of $1,000,000 in copyright infringement damages even though we were making no money on the production. In fact, after set design costs, costumes and props, we were losing money. We did as we were told. We canceled the show immediately. Part of me was bummed the show we had spent so much time and effort to bring to life was being killed by legalese. Part of me was excited we were a big enough blip on the radar screen to even be noticed by Mr. Sloss or Mr. Smith (if he even knew about it) and by View Askew Productions.
So now we would like some sort of sit-down with Kevin Smith and/or a representative of View Askew to secure the rights to present a stage production of Clerks. Please consider our request. We are not making any money on this production, so please consider that when calculating the price of rights. Please do not let all of our time and effort in creating a tribute to not only Kevin Smith but also his amazing work go to waste. Respond to joel@vegabound.com or soyp@hotmail.com