FAQ - License Application

Every musical in our catalogue is protected under Copyright law. Before you can produce one of our musicals, you must obtain a performing licence. A licence grants you rights to perform the show and outlines all fees. You should always obtain written confirmation of a musical’s availability from Music Theatre International (Europe) before planning a production or announcing a season. After creating a show, theatre writers copyright their work, protecting their ownership and enabling only them or their representatives (in this case, MTI Europe) to decide: who may perform the show, where it may be performed and what licence fees will be required. On the authors’ behalf, MTI Europe grants a licence for organisations to produce the show and collects a fee, known as a royalty, for all performances. Built into every licence is specific language that governs how the copyrighted work may be presented. 
Our responsibilities include enforcing copyright law as it pertains to live stage performances (prohibiting changes to the script or score, monitoring unlicensed productions, etc), promoting and engaging new productions of shows and to ensure all funds owed are paid to the relevant writers/original rights holders.

The cost of a licence is made up of a number of components:

1) Royalty fee (per performance). There are usually two options – a percentage royalty or a minimum per performance – you would pay whichever is the greater of the two
Royalties are the authors’ way of being paid for the use of their show (their "intellectual property"). The authors of a musical may include the bookwriter (who writes the dialogue), the composer (who writes the music), and the lyricist (who writes the words to the music). Their right to be paid for use of their work is guaranteed by the copyright laws of this and other countries and is the basis of theatrical licensing.

2) Hire fees. Using the fees published on each show page you are able to work out how much you would pay. The standard rehearsal package MUST be hired with all performing licences (where applicable).
Rental fees are charged for the materials we supply to your theatre organisation in conjunction with a performance licence. These materials include the performance materials (scripts, scores, etc.) and the MTI Theatrical Resources.

3) Theatrical resources/video licence (optional)

4) Postage and packaging 

5) V.A.T. (payable on the royalty fee)

Should you wish to check availability before applying please contact us

You can apply for a performing licence by clicking here
We recommend that you do not apply for a performing licence until you have read and understood the various fees and materials available for the show you’re interested in staging. These are available on each show’s individual website page.

Once an application has been submitted one of our licensing team will be in touch from anywhere between 30minutes up to 10 working days. You will receive an automatic email from our website detailing whether your application has been successful. If we’re unable to license your production you will always be given a reason.
If successful, you will receive your Performance Agreement after a few minutes of the automatic email. This Agreement needs to be counter-signed and returned to us immediately. 
IMPORTANT: we are unable to provide any hire materials to you until we have received the counter-signed Performance Agreement at our offices.