Concord, considered to be the world’s leading independent music company, has acquired Broadway Licensing Global and its imprints Broadway Licensing, Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, and Stage Rights.
All of the imprints will now become part of Concord Theatricals. The acquisition does not include Stageworks or the Broadway On Demand streaming service.
Concord Theatricals was formed in 2018 and has since become one of the world’s most significant theatrical companies, comprising the catalogs of Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatricals, Tams-Witmark, Samuel French and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, in addition to dozens of new signings each year. The firm provides comprehensive services to creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording and producing. In all, the company supports more than 125,000 artists and songwriters whose works are licensed, marketed, and performed globally.
Concord’s catalog includes 1.3 million songs, compositions, sound recordings, films, plays, and musicals. the firm is headquartered in Nashville with offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin, Melbourne, and Miami.
Broadway Licensing Global and its family of imprints represents one of the the most significant collections of authors and rightsholders around the world, among them David Auburn, Jocelyn Bioh, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Richard Greenberg, Lauren Gunderson, Katori Hall, David Henry Hwang, recent Pulitzer Prize winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Michael Korie, John Leguizamo, Matthew López, Martyna Majok, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson, Alan Menken, Arthur Miller, Lynn Nottage, John Patrick Shanley, Sam Shepard, Tom Stoppard, Paula Vogel, Tennessee Williams, Doug Wright, Harry Potter Theatrical Productions, Hasbro, and Mischief Worldwide.
“Concord’s mission is to champion authors by promoting and protecting their work and empowering theatre makers to help their shows reach audiences worldwide,” said Sean Patrick Flahaven, Chief Theatricals Executive of Concord, in a statement. “Bringing together these catalogs combines 150 titles and 400 authors that are already shared between the companies, as well as creating new relationships. I’m thrilled to put our people and resources at their service. As with our team of 90+ theatrical experts at Concord, my career has been spent in support of authors and producers. We’re grateful to the BLG team for all the work they’ve done building their catalog and for trusting us with it.”
“We are theatre professionals who love what we do,” said Dan Markley, Chief Operating Officer of Broadway Licensing Global. “BLG was founded in 2017 before the Covid pandemic and expanded over the next few years, acquiring Dramatists Play Service along with other licensing companies while funding and stabilizing the company during the most challenging time in the history of the American theatre. Now, Ted Chapin and I are very pleased to have found the right partner to continue to protect our primary stakeholders, the authors and playwrights who create the wonderful works we help make available to performers and producers. By combining forces with Concord, we can now assure best-in-class practices for decades to come for all our stakeholders regardless of market conditions our industry may have to confront.”
Financial details were not disclosed.
Concord was advised in the transaction by Stephen E. Sessa and Ross D. Williams of Reed Smith, Carolyn J. Casselman of Davis Wright Tremaine, and Pedro Miranda Lopez of KPMG. Lisbeth R. Barron of Barron International Group acted as Concord’s exclusive financial advisor.
BLG was advised in the transaction by Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Jeffrey Horwitz, Lara Miller, and Laura Addicott of Proskauer Rose.
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