Signature was probably planning their production a year or more out, so they would have been given the rights long before the tour was planned (otherwise, they likely wouldn't have gotten them). Generally, a regional theater will get exclusivity in their market, but that would only apply to other regional and amateur productions, not first class productions like the tour.
I'm sure Signature is pissed that they're now competing with the highly acclaimed revival. At the regional theater I work with, we won't do a show for at least a couple of years after the tour comes through, since it depresses ticket sales for awhile (and these are often non-Equity tours); this one if happening in the same season with Broadway actors, which is a nightmare for Signature. Yeeks. |
