History ExecutiveMeddling / Theatre

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was displeased. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant''... in the executive's favor, Don Juan Triumphant [[StylisticSuck kinda sucks]].

-->"And the managers must learn\\

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* It is widely speculated that the ending of Creator/{{Moliere}}'s scandalous play ''Theatre/{{Tartuffe}}'' may have been edited.

** ExecutiveMeddling interfering with Hamlet [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jc-7cT12gE was parodied in a charity performance]] by Creator/RowanAtkinson and Creator/HughLaurie, playing Blackadder and Shakespeare, respectively.

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** ExecutiveMeddling interfering with Hamlet [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jc-7cT12gE was parodied in a charity performance]] by RowanAtkinson and HughLaurie, playing Blackadder and Shakespeare, respectively.

* GilbertAndSullivan were quick to shoot down demands that they rename their operetta ''{{Ruddigore}}'' something less offensive to Victorian ears.

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was displeased. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant''... in the executive's favor, Don Juan Triumphant [[StylisticSuck kinda sucks]].

* ''CyranoDeBergerac'': An example InUniverse: At Act II Scene VII, the play notes indicate that Cyrano is tempted to accept a patronage from [[MagnificentBastard Cardenal]] [[ManBehindTheMan Richelieu]], but then [[SpannerInTheWorks De Guiche mentions the one thing]] [[SmallNameBigEgo Cyrano will not tolerate: someone touching his verses.]] It’s necessary to empathize that [[RenaissanceMan Richelieu is a playwright himself, he knows about art]] and he will be paying for everything, so his ExecutiveMeddling could even [[TropesAreNotBad be beneficial to Cyrano’s work]].

* The PDQBach half-act opera ''The Stoned Guest'' was intended to end with all four characters with speaking roles (The fifth character is a dog) killing each other. Then his sponsor told him that the ending was too depressing. So the ending was edited so that all four characters kill each other - and then they all spontaneously come back to life and sing about how they've somehow achieved a happy ending.

* The musical ''CityOfAngels'' is all about this trope. It involves the struggles of a crime novel writer named Stine, as he attempts to adapt one of his crime novels as a movie. Unfortunately, the film's producer [[MeaningfulName Buddy Fiddler]] insists that he make all sorts of crazy changes to the script.

* The authorities made Giuseppe Verdi completely rewrite ''AMaskedBall'' several times, because the original version was about the assassination of a king.

* HenrikIbsen's ''Theatre/ADollsHouse'' created enormous controversy for its time with its story of a housewife who realizes her husband has no real respect for her and eventually works up the strength to leave him. For its production in Germany Ibsen was forced to write a new ending where the husband drags her to see her children, and she realizes she can't leave them. Reading it, one gets the idea Ibsen deliberately made it as last-minute and unbelievable as possible.

* Stan Freberg ran into a crazy example of this when he tried to adapt his successful comedy album ''Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America'' to the stage. The legendary (and infamous in theatre circles, at least partly for providing several examples of this trope) producer David Merrick became interested after hearing just the first third of Volume One. However, first he told Freberg NOT to record Volume II for a while, so that it wouldn't compete with the Original Cast Recording. And then there were arguments over the size of the orchestra; Merrick said the orchestra should be bigger, and then changed his mind and said it was fine as Freberg had originally conceived it. Merrick continued to play mind games with Freberg for a while, culminating in meddling with the script. Infamously, he told Stan Freberg to "Take Lincoln out of the Civil War. He doesn't work!". He also told Freberg to move Barbra Frietzche (of the Civil War poem of the same name) from the Civil War to the Revolutionary War. This was more or less the last straw, and Freberg (under advice from his wife) abandoned the project while he still had his sanity and integrity intact. The adaptation was cancelled, Freberg then devoted his energies to advertising, and Volume II of ''The United States of America'' would not be completed and released until 35 years later.

* The musical ''City of Angels'' is all about this trope. It involves the struggles of a crime novel writer named Stine, as he attempts to adapt one of his crime novels as a movie. Unfortunately, the film's producer [[MeaningfulName Buddy Fiddler]] insists that he make all sorts of crazy changes to the script.

* GilbertAndSullivan were quick to shoot down demands that they rename their operetta ''Ruddigore'' something less offensive to Victorian ears.

* {{Gilbert and Sullivan}} were quick to shoot down demands that they rename their operetta ''Ruddigore'' something less offensive to Victorian ears.

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''{{The Phantom of the Opera}}'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was displeased. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant''... in the executive's favor, Don Juan Triumphant [[StylisticSuck kinda sucks]].

* It is widely speculated that the ending of {{Moliere}}'s scandalous play ''Theatre/{{Tartuffe}}'' may have been edited.

--> '''De Guiche:''' He is a critic skilled:
--> He may correct a line or two, at most.
--> '''Cyrano''' ''(whose face stiffens at once):'' Impossible! My blood congeals to think

* Subverted in ''Don't Blame Me, I'm Just the Playwright'', a short play that features massive amounts of this trope InUniverse. The two playwrights are trying to make a serious play called ''Last Visit'' about a girl with two weeks to live. ExecutiveMeddling turns it into a musical comedy, adding fart jokes, vampires[[hottip:*:hilarious ''{{Twilight}}'' ShoutOut]], and a psychotic, anorexic diva for the lead. The playwrights come perilously close to [[DisownedAdaptation washing their hands of the whole thing]] ... then the finished play turns out to be a hit and they figure, what the hell.

* In a literal case of "Executive" meddling, {{Shakespeare}} wrote ''Theatre/TheMerryWivesOfWindsor'' in response to Queen Elizabeth I's insistence that he feature the character John Falstaff in a comedy. Falstaff's previous appearances had been in histories set in the 14th and 15th centuries; "The Merry Wives" arbitrarily plucks him out of time and places him in the contemporary 17th century.

* HenrikIbsen's ''ADollsHouse'' created enormous controversy for its time with its story of a housewife who realizes her husband has no real respect for her and eventually works up the strength to leave him. For its production in Germany Ibsen was forced to write a new ending where the husband drags her to see her children, and she realizes she can't leave them. Reading it, one gets the idea Ibsen deliberately made it as last-minute and unbelievable as possible.

* HenrikIbsen's ''A Doll's House'' created enormous controversy for its time with its story of a housewife who realizes her husband has no real respect for her and eventually works up the strength to leave him. For its production in Germany Ibsen was forced to write a new ending where the husband drags her to see her children, and she realizes she can't leave them. Reading it, one gets the idea Ibsen deliberately made it as last-minute and unbelievable as possible.

* In a literal case of "Executive" meddling, {{Shakespeare}} wrote ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' in response to Queen Elizabeth I's insistence that he feature the character John Falstaff in a comedy. Falstaff's previous appearances had been in histories set in the 14th and 15th centuries; "The Merry Wives" arbitrarily plucks him out of time and places him in the contemporary 17th century.
** It's also believed that this is why Hamlet had to die in the end; law at the time stated that anyone who killed the king in a work of fiction could not survive, even if the king in question killed his predecessor to usurp the throne.

* It is widely speculated that the ending of {{Moliere}}'s scandalous play {{Tartuffe}} may have been edited.
* CyranoDeBergerac: An example InUniverse: At Act II Scene VII, the play notes indicate that Cyrano is tempted to accept a patronage from [[MagnificentBastard Cardenal]] [[ManBehindTheMan Richelieu]], but then [[SpannerInTheWorks De Guiche mentions the one thing]] [[SmallNameBigEgo Cyrano will not tolerate: someone touching his verses.]] It’s necessary to empathize that [[RenaissanceMan Richelieu is a playwright himself, he knows about art]] and he will be paying for everything, so his ExecutiveMeddling could even [[TropesAreNotBad be beneficial to Cyrano’s work]].

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''{{The Phantom of the Opera}}'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was displeased. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant''... in the executive's favor, Don Juan Triumphant [[StylisticSuck kinda sucks]].:
* It is widely speculated that the ending of {{Moliere}}'s scandalous play {{Tartuffe}} may have been edited.

* CyranoDeBergerac: An example InUniverse: At Act II Scene VII, the play notes indicate that Cyrano is tempted to accept a patronage from [[MagnificentBastard Cardenal]] [[ManBehindTheMan Richelieu]], but then [[SpannerInTheWorks De Guiche mentions the one thing]] [[SmallNameBigEgo Cyrano will not tolerate: someone touching his verses.]] It’s necessary to empathize that [[RenaissanceMan Richelieu is a playwright himself, he knows about art]] and he will be paying for everything, so his ExecutiveMeddling could even [[TropesAreNotBad beneficiate Cyrano’s work]].

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''{{The Phantom of the Opera}}'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was [[{{Understatement}} displeased]]. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant''... in the executive's favor, Don Juan Triumphant [[StylisticSuck kinda sucks]].:

--> '''Cyrano''' ''(whose face stiffens at once):’’ Impossible! My blood congeals to think

that their place is in an office, not the arts."

* It is widely speculated that the ending of [[Moliere]]'s scandalous play [[Tartuffe]] may have been edited.

* An in-story example: in AndrewLloydWebber's ''{{The Phantom of the Opera}}'', the theater managers refused to acquiesce to the Opera Ghost's demands that Christine Daae be cast as the Countess in ''[[ShowWithinAShow Il Muto]]'', instead casting Carlotta as the lead and Christine in a silent role. The Phantom was [[{{Understatement}} displeased]]. After humiliating Carlotta on stage, he later confronted the managers and demanded that they produce his new play, ''Don Juan Triumphant'':