Being a poor artist is a fine art in itself. You need to know your rights and options when it comes to creating new and innovative theatre while protecting the few assets you have. Such as a beaten up macbook or a barely running motor vehicle.
1. Cabaret Law
When producing a cabaret, one adds different songs from different artists into a self created story line and characters. They key here is different. You cannot legally use two songs by the same catalog or it's no longer considered Cabaret. You would then need to the pay the artist for the right to use their songs in the show. The easier thing is to use all different catalogs. The MAJOR label you have to avoid doubling up on is Walt Disney Co. they are infamous for suing little artists because they have enough money to sue everyone and like to make examples out of the people. This includes all music from disney movies, although a song may be written by Randy Newman, it's partially owned by Disney Co. for being put into Toy Story.
You have to also watch RCA records when dealing with vintage records and songs as this company owns a majority of classic music from the 40's and 50's and you run a risk of doubling when you are picking a lot from this genre. In your program you must list the song and the holding artist. The font of the songs and artists must be no smaller than 12, Times New Roman.
If you lip sync you must include the original vocal artist, but if you're singing to a backing track you only need list the composer and the owner of the copyright. (If they differ.)
You may have to consider this when choosing your song choices for a sound design.
