UPDATE: Erin Pike's THAT'SWHATSHESAID Performed With Revisions After Samuel French's Cease and Desist Order

As reported by BroadwayWorld, Erin Pike's performance of Courtney Meaker's solo piece, THAT'SWHATSHESAID, received a cease and desist order from the publishing company Samuel French an hour before Friday's performance at Seattle's Gay City's Calamus Auditorium..

The order came after a review was posted by The Stranger's Rick Smith, describing the play as a collage piece consisting of dialogue from the female characters that appear in American Theater magazine's list of the 10 most-frequently-produced American plays during the 2014-2015 season. They are:

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE by Christopher Durang

OUTSIDE MULLINGAR by John Patrick Shanley

BAD JEWS by Joshua Harmon

OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS adapted from the novel by Jules Verne

PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, adapted by Rick Elice from Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

THE WHIPPING MAN by Matthew Lopez

TRIBES by Nina Raine

4000 MILES by Amy Herzog

INTO THE WOODS, book by James Lapine, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

VENUS IN FUR by David Ives

As reported by Smith, Joshua Harmon's agent sent an email to Samuel French with a link to his review, which particularly described how material from BAD JEWS was used in a piece that is critical of the way women are represented in American theatre.

In past cases, courts have addressed the issue of fair use, noting cases where a certain amount of copyrighted material can be used as parody or commentary. This allows, for instance, a show like FORBIDDEN BROADWAY to exist as a revue of parody songs.

In an interview with Smith, Samuel French Executive Director Bruce Lazarus explained that from reading the review it was determined that the show appeared to be violating copyright laws and that it was the company's responsibility to protect the rights of the playwright.

In response to the critic's description of the piece as a parody and a collage, Lazarus responded, "That's your interpretation. Because you call it a parody doesn't make it so. Fair use is a defense, and if proved it's perfectly fine and within the law. But it's a judge's determination as to whether THAT'SWHATSHESAID constitutes fair use. Not having seen it, not having read it, I couldn't tell you if it was fair use or not."

"These are two people," Lazarus stressed. "She may in fact have a fair use defense. But the fact of the matter is, this is someone who spent two years of his life writing something. Building something. If THAT'SWHATSHESAID isn't fair use-think about it. [Harmon] spent two years building a house and someone walks by it and says, 'Oh, I'm gonna live there. I'm gonna move in.' It's his house. He owns it. She's using it. He has the right to defend it. He makes his living doing this. He pays his rent from his royalties. And so to just go and take it is unfair. He's just a man. Who writes plays. And he tries to make it a living."

Shortly before performance time, Pike received this voice mail from Lazarus, reminding her of the cease and desist notice.

Friday's performance, which was sold out in advance, began with the audiClick here ence hearing that exact voice mail message over the sound system, and whenever Pike came to a point where BAD JEWS would be quoted, an offstage voice yelled "redacted" and she would mime the moment rather than speak it.

THAT'SWHATSHESAID had been previously performed in Portland and Minneapolis without incident. HATLO, who directed the piece, said they redacted the lines because they wanted to make sure Gay City would not be subjected to legal actions.

"In that pressure cooker bit of time, that was our biggest concern. Gay City didn't want to do the show because they'd been threatened."

"The show was great," Pike said afterward, "We were thrown this hurdle and we jumped it."

"Frankly, I think that it's white male fragility," says HATLO. "I think somebody reacted to what you wrote and-I don't have a lot of time in my life for fragility. That's too bad that that was his reaction."

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