Today, when Maurine Watkins' original stage play Chicago is produced, the musical rights holder wants the play renamed Play Ball. This is so there is no confusion about which play is being done: the straight play or the musical.
The impetus, though, for the mis-naming this play, comes from the original title of the play (when first copyrighted). Maurine Watkins called it Chicago, or, Play Ball. However, the play was never originally produced under any title containing the words "play ball". Some of the articles that came out before and after Chicago's original production did mention the original title of the play: A Brave Little Woman. But no articles mentioned "Play Ball."
In a letter accompanying the copyright findings when the search was forwarded to the Estate lawyers, the letter's author (Calvin ("Bud") E. Hayden, Jr.) stated that he did not know whether the first copyrighted version of Chicago (February 26, 1926) was any different from the second copyrighted version (March 18, 1927).
In order to determine whether any of Watkins' other plays were worth renewing the copyrights on, Sheldon Abend (his American Play Company had been managing Chicago's rights for many years) was asked to read and judge the literary worth of all her plays. But in that process, neither copyrighted version of Chicago appears (to my research) to have been so analyzed. There was no report on Chicago mentioned in the probate file, though there were detailed synopses and analysis of the other plays; Chicago's merits seem not to have been in question. And so, since it doesn't appear that anyone actually made a determination on whether the second version (the 1927 published script titled Chicago) was any different from the first copyrighted version (1926, titled Chicago, or, Play Ball), the decision seems to have been made to use the original copyrighted title in reference to the play. But they are two different entities. In the end, perhaps the name change was intended to cover the bases (pun not necessarily unintended); this way, both versions were lumped together by referring to the play (either version) as Chicago a/k/a Play Ball.
Sadly, though, this only adds confusion since the play was never "known" as Play Ball except by someone familiar with the play's copyright history.
While perhaps creating a more encompassing name for the play may make sense from a protection standpoint, it is rather inexact. And confusing. Which version of the play is being produced? (Or which version should be produced?) When one contracts for the rights to production, the only script anyone has access to is the published script from 1927; the 1926 version that bore the subtitle "or, Play Ball," is not available to the general public, and exists only as a manuscript in the Library of Congress. There, being granted the right to read that script requires permission from the scattered heirs to the Watkins Estate (there's about 20 now).
Besides, Chicago is what the play had been produced and known as for some 45 years already. Two adaptations had already been made (Chicago), the silent film version supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, and Roxie Hart, the 1942 MGM film) and both referred to their source as "Chicago by Maurine Watkins."Even to this day, the stage and film musical versions credit their source as "Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins."
That brings me to a related point. The same "misnaming" also happened to Miss Watkins' name (and through the same process and personalities that created the new title). On her adult works, her name always appeared as "Maurine Watkins,". It was only in the first copyrighted version of Chicago and a very few other works including one post card to Dorotha Watkins that has survived: a postcard (1916), her editorials for the Tansylvanian—the literary publication of Transylvania College (1916-1917), a letter to President R. H. Crossfield of Transylvania College (1917), and her copyrighted scripts for the stage plays Henrietta's Mother (1922), Marsh-Land (1923), Chicago, or, Play Ball (1926), So Help Me God! (1928), and Tinsel Girl [later to be used as the basis for the film The Strange Love of Molly Louvain] (1931)juvenalia, that her middle name, "Dallas," was listed. (According to her cousin, Dorotha Watkins Jacobsen, Maurine gave herself that middle name in honor of her father's Missouri county of birth, Dallas, to which the family returned every summer.) The moniker "Maurine Dallas Watkins" was most often associated with her earlier, not her later, mature works.
So, instead of referring to the play as "Chicago by Maurine Watkins"—the way it was when first produced and the way the subsequent published script has always refered to the play and its author, now (after Miss Watkins' death, that is) there has been a requirement to call it "Chicago a.k.a. Play Ball by Maurine Dallas Watkins," "Play Ball a.k.a. Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins," and most recently as "Play Ball by Maurine Dallas Watkins."
Despite this misunderstanding, the cover and title pages of the musical script [book] of Chicago (1975) published by Samuel French lists its source this way: "Based on the Play 'Chicago' by Maurine Dallas Watkins."
So, when someone is producing the play and being required to call it Play Ball, is the public really going to know what play they are seeing? Does producing the play under this new title shoot the producer in the foot, making it more difficult to target the desired audience, or does it just open up new controversies and opportunities for clever producers (and press agents)? And would Maurine Watkins have approved...and laughed?
See also the copyright history of Maurine Watkins' Chicago up to her death.
