Theater & Live Entertainment

Today’s theater industry is full of opportunities — and challenges. Enormous demand. Tight competition for stages. Innovative new technologies disrupting traditional business models.

Loeb & Loeb has one of the premier Theater practices in the world, providing clients with a full slate of legal services. We work with all players — producers, playwrights, directors, designers, theater owners, motion picture studios, new media companies, nonprofits, music publishers, licensing organizations, theatrical agents, investors and individuals — in connection with productions across the globe. Our team offers a strategic, holistic approach, in-depth knowledge of the live stage industry, and deep connections throughout the theater community and across all sectors of the entertainment industry in order to enable our clients to bring their visions to life. We are very passionate about this field — and consider ourselves as much a part of the theater industry as we do the legal industry.

Loeb lawyers have played key roles in the most significant productions of the past few decades, including many Tony Award-nominated shows. We serve as production counsel — including negotiating major rights acquisition deals for underlying rights, music rights and trademarks and to obtain services from key creative and management personnel, and preparing financing documents for multimillion-dollar capital raises — on behalf of producers for productions around the world. And when we aren’t serving as production counsel, we negotiate deals on behalf of rights licensors and service providers, including underlying rights holders, music publishers, authors, directors, designers and theater owners.

Our team works with some of the most established creatives in their fields — legendary producers and directors; stars of music, stage and screen; and award-winning playwrights and designers — as well as up-and-coming talent in connection with Broadway and other theater projects.

With our 100-plus-year history in the entertainment industry and touting one of the premier Live Stage & Theater practices in the world, Loeb serves as a critical bridge for all players between Hollywood and Broadway. From producers, playwrights and directors to theater owners, motion picture studios and licensing organizations—and everyone in between—we provide our clients with a full slate of legal services as production counsel, including negotiating major rights acquisition deals for underlying rights, music rights and trademarks and to obtain services from key creative and management personnel, and preparing financing documents for multimillion-dollar capital raises. And when we aren’t serving as production counsel, we negotiate deals on behalf of rights licensors and service providers. Our cross-functional team of attorneys bring their in-depth experience across the entertainment sector to represent nearly all the major film studios like MGM, as well as production and media companies, as licensors of stage rights in their films and other properties or as producers of plays and musicals based on their films and other properties.

In today’s more integrated and technology-driven entertainment market, we advise creatives developing new properties including variety entertainment, immersive live events and works that incorporate new technology.

With seamless collaboration among our colleagues across disciplines in the firm — intellectual property, securities, tax, entertainment labor, advertising and media, and litigation — our team is able to provide business-savvy and practical counsel on issues such as copyright risk, personal right of privacy and publicity, and securities and tax implications for productions in domestic and global markets.