Fleetwood Mac sound engineer sues “Stereophonic” on allegations of copyright infringement

Sound engineer Ken Caillat alleges in a complaint that the Tony-winning play steals from his memoir "Making Rumours"

Stereophonic, the 2024 Tony award winner for Best Play, is now facing offstage drama.

Ken Caillat, a sound engineer and producer on Fleetwood Mac's iconic album Rumours, is suing the playwright, David Adjmi, on allegations of copyright infringement. In addition to Adjmi, the suit names the play's commercial Broadway producers, the theater owner, and the nonprofit developers of the play as defendants.

Caillat is joined by fellow plaintiff Steven Stiefel, his co-author on 2012's Making Rumours, the memoir that he claims inspired large chunks of Stereophonic.

Related: Stereophonic review: Drama from the studio enters the stage, and it's a hit

"Stereophonic copied our clients’ book," attorney Brian Williams claimed in a statement. "Defendants have happily accepted the accolades and profits the play has generated, but they are sponging off of the work of Ken Caillat and Steve Stiefel. Through this lawsuit, Mr. Caillat and Mr. Stiefel seek to recover their rightful share based on what was taken from them."

Dubbed the "most Tony-nominated play of all time," Stereophonic has been earning raves since it first premiered Off-Broadway last fall at Playwrights Horizons, before transferring to Broadway this past spring.

The play follows the making of an untitled album from a 1970s rock band, who channel their struggles with addiction, sobriety, and their relationship woes into their songwriting. Since the play's debut, many critics have drawn parallels between the play's characters and the real-life members of Fleetwood Mac. Notably, the gender and citizenship of the band's make-up seems exact to that of Fleetwood Mac. One couple is American: songwriter/vocalist/tambourine player Diana and volatile, controlling lead guitarist Peter. The other couple is British: vocalist and keyboardist Holly and bassist Reg. They are all led by a British drummer, Simon, responsible for putting the band together.

Related: Stereophonic to release an album featuring original cast

Now, Caillat and Stiefel are suing over these perceived similarities. In the complaint obtained by Entertainment Weekly, they allege that the play is "an unauthorized adaptation of the copyrighted memoir of Ken Caillat, titled Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album."

Stereophonic takes place in a recording studio, with the sound board and engineering space taking up the bulk of the space. The lawsuit takes this as its central argument, noting that Making Rumours recounts the making of the album from the unique perspective of the engineer at the sound board, looking through the glass of the recording booth.

"The first thing audiences see when they watch Stereophonic is that the set for the play is a recording studio, with the audience positioned so that they are watching the play from the perspective of the engineers and producers of a rock album," the complaint alleges. "Indeed, the set of Stereophonic essentially places the audience in the very chair where Mr. Caillat sat as he engineered and produced Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, as Plaintiffs vividly described in Making Rumours."

Related: Stereophonic duo David Adjmi and Will Butler break down writing a behind-the-scenes drama about 1970s rock stars

The character of the sound engineer, Grover, and his promotion from engineer to producer is one that the suit claims mirrors Caillat's own trajectory while working on Rumours. Additionally, they allege that many of the play's plot points and dialogue are lifted from Caillat's book, including a sequence in which Peter physically assaults Grover that is similar to Caillat's own description of an incident in which Lindsey Buckingham choked him after he erased a take at Buckingham's request.

"The script for Stereophonic is substantially similar to the Work and copies numerous original, creative elements of the Work, including concept, plot, scenes, characters, and dialogue," the complaint claims.

The complaint lays out other perceived similarities — notably, it calls attention to the use of the 1976 Mill Valley Houseboat Wars, mentioned in Caillat's book, as fodder for a key scene featuring Reg monologuing about the houseboats. This monologue has been widely praised in reviews and was a component in actor Will Brill's Tony-winning performance.

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Lastly, the complaint alleges that the play has the potential to eliminate other potential income streams for Caillat and Stiefel, most particularly in the form of a film adaptation. "Mr. Caillat has long made plans to adapt his book into a film," it reads. "However, Mr. Adjmi also intends to adapt Stereophonic into a movie. A movie version of Stereophonic will not only continue to infringe on Plaintiffs’ copyright, but will also undermine any potential film that Plaintiffs make and cause Plaintiffs further harm."

Adjmi has routinely denied that Stereophonic is based on Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, calling them one influence among many while writing the play. The complaint cites many of Adjmi's statements to this effect.

Representatives for Adjmi and the production did not immediately reply to EW's request for comment.

Related: Mick Fleetwood calls for a 'healing' between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks

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Adjmi told Entertainment Weekly last spring that it was the ethos of the 1970s music scene that inspired him as a whole. "A lot of my first impressions about what music and popular culture was were formed during this period," he said. "There was an innocence to the period in some ways, meaning that everything wasn't so corporatized. There's a prelapsarian desire for going back to what it was — this innocent, pure experience of 'I just want to make a great record.'"

Currently, Stereophonic is set to run on Broadway through Jan. 12. A vinyl album of the show's soundtrack, as composed by Will Butler, will be released on Oct. 18.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.