| Well, there is an opera based on the play, written by Ned Rorem (music) and J.D. McClatchy (libretto), and it is available for performance. (I saw its NYC debut at a student production at the Juilliard School in 2008. It wasn't my cup of tea.) When Rorem died in 2022, Tappan Wilder wrote: "As I write these words the Ned Rorem / J.D. McClatchy haunting and lambent Our Town Opera has been performed more than thirty times since its premiere at Indiana University on February 26, 2006." So clearly he liked it. If somehow the musical stage rights merged in the opera, it could complicate matters. It would no longer be the Wilder estate's decision but rather that of the Rorem and McClatchy estates. However, with the Wilder estate having been so conservative in the past regarding rights and their possible merger, it might still hold the rights to do a stage musical (as opposed to an opera) of OUR TOWN. |
