Duluth's Rubber Chicken Theater Gets Cease And Desist From Fargo

Rubber Chicken Theater does a bit called Live Reads, they were set to perform "Fargo", a movie written, produced, and directed by Minnesotans, the Coen Brothers, but they were given a cease and desist.

I talked to Brian Matuszak from Rubber Chicken Theater, and he told me how the story unfolded. First, the group picks a script to read, then he writes a letter asking permission to use it after describing what and how they use it for. He then follows up with the studio to make sure. He said, "Most of the time I hear nothing".

The only time he did hear something, Sony Pictures wrote back telling him not to use "A League of Their Own". He understood and Rubber Chicken Theater picked something else. This time, he didn't hear anything with the first letter and nothing with the follow up.

Then, a week before Rubber Chicken Theater was supposed to perform the live read for "Fargo", he got a letter in the mail. It was a cease and desist letter, which is a little more threatening than a letter saying no to the production.

As Brian Matuszak said the letter contained "all sorts of threatening measures" if they went through with the performance. So, Matuszak said they had to pull the performance and can't put anything together that fast, and canceled the Live Reads for this year.

Brian told me the next Rubber Chicken Theater production will be June 11th for the Chicken Hat Plays, which is a collection of one-act plays written and directed, and produced in 24 hours.

For more info on Rubber Chicken Theater, you can go to their website or their Facebook page. Thank you to Brian for the great interview.