Responding to pressure from the Dramatists Guild of America, the New York Musical Theatre Festival has announced that it will not seek subsidiary rights to authors' work presented in this year's festival. NYMF had altered its contract with participants this year to guarantee the festival 2 percent of the applicant and author's gross “on all income received from the play in excess of $20,000 over 10 years.” The Dramatists Guild complained that such rights exceeded what NYMF was entitled to as a nonproducing partner. In a letter to the guild dated June 16 and sent to reporters today, NYMF agreed to alter its contract again.

“The mission of NYMF is to support theater artists, not to argue with them,” NYMF executive director Isaac Hurwitz wrote. “We therefore withdraw our request to share in the subsidiary rights of authors participating in the 2010 festival and will remove that section (Paragraph 5[E]) from our contract.”

The New York Musical Theatre Festival will take place Sept. 27–Oct. 17.