Ken Caillat, a producer known for sound engineering Fleetwood Mac, and Steven Stiefel, co-author of a memoir about the band, are suing the makers of the award-winning musical Stereophonic.
The widely acclaimed show, which picked up five Tony awards this year, focuses on a fictional, mixed-gender British American band making an album in the 1970s and the many tensions that arise. The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo called it “redolent of Fleetwood Mac” while Vulture’s Sara Holdren referred to it as an “echo-portrait of Fleetwood Mac and the hard birth of Rumours”.
Caillat and Stiefel, whose book Making Rumours was published in 2012, claim the “disturbing truth” behind the show is that the playwright David Adjmi has copied “the heart and soul” of their work and made something “substantially similar”.
The suit points at a sound engineer character providing the play with a perspective from outside of the band. An anecdote from the book, which involved Caillat erasing guitar from a take under orders only for anger to ensue, is also alleged to be copied on stage.
They claim that the success of the show has harmed any possible adaptation of the book in the future given that Adjmi also intends to turn it into a movie.
Last month, when Caillat’s claims had started to surface, Adjmi was asked about it in an interview with the New Yorker. “When writing Stereophonic I drew from multiple sources – including autobiographical details from my own life – to create a deeply personal work of fiction,” he said. “Any similarities to Ken Caillat’s excellent book are unintentional.”
In the same article, Caillat claims to feel “ripped off” by Adjmi.
“The connections between the play and Fleetwood Mac and the Rumours album are so obvious that multiple news outlets have called out the numerous similarities,” the complaint said. “Simply put, any attempt by Mr Adjmi to disclaim Stereophonic as not being about Fleetwood Mac and Rumours is disingenuous.”
When asked about his inspiration during a Deadline interview, Adjmi also said: “I know why people are saying, ‘Oh it’s the Fleetwood Mac story,’ but I don’t know Fleetwood Mac. I never met them. You know what I mean? There is no beginning and end to a Fleetwood Mac story. You know, this play is its own invention.”
Adjmi has previously been accused of copyright infringement in 2015 over his show 3C which was alleged to copy the 1970s sitcom Three’s Company. But the judge ruled in favour of Adjmi, claiming it was “fair use”.
Adjmi is named as a defendant along with various producers and groups behind the show. Caillat and Stiefel are aiming for unspecified damages and a block to the “copying, publication, release, broadcast, performance, and other exploitation of Stereophonic”.
Stereophonic has made over $20m since opening on Broadway.
The Guardian has reached out to the show’s representatives for comment.
