The Door McAllen Church Will Pay Damages For Unlicensed Performances Of HAMILTON

As BroadwayWorld reported earlier, RGV Productions of The Door Christian Fellowship Ministries in McAllen, Texas performed an unauthorized, wildly edited version of Hamilton earlier this month that has raised eyebrows across the country. The two illegal shows, for which they did not have the rights to perform included vastly different dialogue and lyrics from the musical audiences are familiar with.

Following updates from the production and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, the church has now issued a statement that they will pay damages and acknowledging the copyright protections afforded to artists' work.

Read their full statement below:

On behalf of The Door Christian Fellowship McAllen Church, I would like to personally apologize to the creator of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the producers of Hamilton, and the numerous others who contributed their intellectual property to Hamilton, for staging an unauthorized production of Hamilton that infringed on the rights and copyrights of many.

The Door Christian Fellowship McAllen Church did not ask for, or receive, a license from the producers or creators of Hamilton to produce, stage, replicate or alter any part of Hamilton; nor did we seek prior permission to alter Lin-Manuel Miranda's work by changing the music, the lyrics, deleting songs, and adding dialogue.

We respect the copyrights of Hamilton"s author and contributors.

These copyrights are protected by federal law. We acknowledge there are lawful avenues to obtain a license to stage properties which we did not pursue. And it is never permissible to alter an artistic work such as Hamilton without legal permission. I recognize as the Pastor of the church that I have an obligation and responsibility to follow the law and educate our community about these protocols. Our ministry will use this moment as a learning opportunity about protected artistic works and intellectual property.

On behalf of The Door Christian Fellowship McAllen Church, we agree we will never stage the performance again and will destroy any and all video or sound recordings and images of the unauthorized performances or rehearsals, and request that all our members do the same. Lastly, we will pay damages for our actions.