EXCLUSIVE: The American Play Firm, most not too long ago led by Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas and his enterprise accomplice, Mark Shankman, is being acquired by the theatrical division of Worldwide Literary Companions.
With roots courting to the Eighties, APC was as soon as an company representing shoppers like George Bernard Shaw, Jerome Kern and J.M. Barrie. It went on to manage the estates of Damon Runyon, whose writing shaped the premise of Broadway musical Guys & Dolls; and Cornell Woolrich, whose story “It Needed to Be Homicide” was the supply of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rear Window. APC additionally has a stake within the estates of authors together with Maurine Dallas Watkins, who wrote the 1926 play which impressed the Broadway musical Chicago.
“Mark and I are so excited for this subsequent nice chapter for APC and its catalog of iconic literary legacies,” Douglas mentioned. “We sit up for working with Michael and the whole group at ILP as they proceed and increase upon the corporate’s storytelling legacy.”
ILP Theatrical CEO Michael Barra described the works in APC’s catalog as “integral to the material of the American theater.” Alluding to ILP Chairman Thomas B. McGrath, he continued, “We’re thrilled to not solely be moving into the position of steward for such literary luminaries, but additionally to be working with Michael Douglas and Mark Shankman on this assortment of classics going ahead.”
ILP invests in, acquires, manages, and enhances literary and theatrical estates. Its theatrical division was based and led by Barra and McGrath. With places of work in New York, London, Los Angeles and Austin, ILP works carefully with ebook authors, playwrights, lyricists and composers, together with their representatives, heirs and property managers.
Since its founding in 2020, ILP has constructed a various portfolio of iconic creators, together with Somerset Maugham, Langston Hughes, Alfred Uhry, Ann Rule, Georges Simenon, James M. Cain, Joseph Kesselring, Georgette Heyer, Ngaio Marsh, Mary Wesley, and Arto Paasilinna. ILP companions with main creatives and media producers to develop new variations throughout publishing, tv, movie, theatre, and digital platforms.
American Play Firm was based by Elisabeth Marbury in 1914. After years of success as agent to many literary luminaries akin to Shaw, Barrie, Edmond Rostand, Rachel Crothers, G.M. Cohan, Jerome Kern, and P.G. Wodehouse, she merged her firm with Selwyn & Co. By 1930, the APC was an amalgam of such legacy corporations as Selwyn & Co, Elisabeth Marbury, Inc., The John Rumsey Play Firm, and The De Mille Firm.
Within the early Sixties, the corporate was bought and led by legendary producer Sheldon Abend till 1999, when it was acquired by Douglas to develop properties for movie and tv. Abend was generally known as an mental property rights pioneer. He argued in a Supreme Courtroom case that widows and heirs of deceased authors ought to have the unique proper to allow the creation and exploitation of spinoff works, no matter probably conflicting agreements by prior copyright holders.
In 2019, Mark Shankman turned Douglas’ accomplice and has overseen the catalog’s position in such tasks as Chicago, the longest-running American musical on Broadway and the current hit revival of Guys & Dolls on the Bridge Theatre in London. The corporate additionally has been concerned within the not too long ago introduced movie remake of Guys & Dolls from Sony’s TriStar Footage, with Rob Marshall hooked up to direct.
