FAQ
Q. Why are you making these plays available for free?
A. Over the years, I have worked in many community, professional and educational non-profit theatres. I know how hard it is to find the time and resources to identify, read, develop, and ultimately produce new plays. This is my little personal contribution back to the fields that I love so much and care so much about.
Q. Why is this archive called “Open” if you’re charging for print copies via Lulu?
A. This is an “Open Archive” because if you are an educator or a non-profit theatre (even a first-class professional one, SPT, LORT, Equity, etc.), you can read and use these plays for free, meaning you don’t need to pay me royalties to perform them in front of a live audience. The copies for sale on Lulu are formatted as acting editions. They’re smaller and more compact, and should fit in an actor’s hand easily during rehearsals. You can purchase them and have them delivered to you, or download and make your own copies of the pdf manuscript, which is free. The print-on-demand copy is simply an additional service that I’m offering.
Q. What do you mean by “educational” and “non-profit” theatre?
I mean any live theater that takes place in an nonprofit educational setting, from pre-kindergarten through university level, or any live theatre, professional or amatuer, produced under 501 (c) 3 in the United States or NGO status internationally. My whole passion in life has been to help the arts and education thrive. And thriving to me means the open expression, exchange, and appreciation of artistic creativity and critical inquiry. If these plays can help be of use to you in harmony with this mission, please, use them to the fullest extent of your ability.
Q. What is Creative Commons, and why are you using it?
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. I encourage you to look at their website and learn more about their work. The Creative Commons vision is “realizing the full potential of the internet — universal access to research, education, full participation in culture, and driving a new era of development, growth, and productivity.” I’m releasing this work under a modified and expanded Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license: because in addition to allowing you to download and make copies, I am allowing SOME Derivs, or derivative works: namely, performance rights in all media. I’m trying to clarify that it’s okay for you to charge fees for these performances, so long as the fees you’re collecting are contributing back to a non-profit art or education entity. Creative Commons does not make this distinction in its current licenses, so I’m trying to give you a little more permission to use the work freely than the most restrictive license might indicate. But, to be clear, I’m not giving away my entire copyright to this material, meaning, I still “own” these plays.
Three major influences in making the decision to post this material have been Charles Mee, a playwright whose work I love and is available online and who is still charging traditional royalties for performances, Cory Doctorow, a science fiction writer and advocate for Creative Commons who releases many of his books online for free but who is also published by traditional publishers, and Georgia K Harper, the Scholarly Communications Advisor of the University of Texas Libraries, whose passion for learning, creativity, and Creative Commons and explanation of the state of copyright law helped me have the courage to break my own resistance and just do it.
Q. What am I NOT allowed to do with these plays?
Please don’t add substantial new material to my plays as you perform them or copy very large chunks of them and call them your own. They are my original works of art, and I would appreciate your giving me proper name credit whenever possible, “by Emily Ball Cicchini.” You’re not allowed to produce the plays in this Open Archive in a commercial model or adapt them into another media for commercial purposes (including educational), that means, anything designed to make a profit for individuals, partnerships, or corporations. If you are interested in using these plays (or any of my other plays not posted here or future works) in a commercial venture, I’d be happy to have your lawyers work out something with my lawyers.
Me, I just want to keep writing.
