What better way to kick off the New Year than with Public Domain Day. 

Every January 1, a new selection of books, films, and songs become available for you to adapt into a play, musical or whatever. 

This is one of the greatest strategies emerging writers and ANY writers can use to get a show off the ground.

And while you might think the biggest benefit about public domain work is about the savings on royalties, that’s not it.

It’s that you don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to make your art . . . AND you can adapt it for now.

It’s what Andrew Lloyd Webber did with ALL his early shows:

Joseph, Superstar, Evita . . . even Phantom!  

Look at Gatsby on Broadway.  

It takes years to secure underlying rights . . . if you can even secure them.  And when you do, there are timelines, restrictions, permissions, approvals, etc.

So if you’re just getting started or even if you’ve got a few Tonys, why not look at opportunities that are easier to execute, because we all know, making theater is hard enough.

Here is what is on its way to the public domain in 2026.

BOOKS

1. As I Lay Dying — William Faulkner
2. The Maltese Falcon — Dashiell Hammett (full novel)
3. The Murder at the Vicarage — Agatha Christie (first Miss Marple novel)
4. First four Nancy Drew books — Carolyn Keene (Mildred Benson)
5. The Little Engine That Could — Watty Piper
6. Elson Basic Readers — William H. Elson (first Dick and Jane)
7. Private Lives — Noël Coward
8. Ash Wednesday — T. S. Eliot
9. Vile Bodies — Evelyn Waugh
10. The 42nd Parallel — John Dos Passos
11. Cimarron — Edna Ferber
12. Strong Poison — Dorothy L. Sayers
13. Angel Pavement — J. B. Priestley
14. Last and First Men — Olaf Stapledon
15. Civilization and Its Discontents (original German) — Sigmund Freud
16. The Cat Who Went to Heaven — Elizabeth Coatsworth & Lynd Ward
17. Swallows and Amazons — Arthur Ransome
18. Cakes and Ale — W. Somerset Maugham
19. The Conquest of Happiness — Bertrand Russell 

FILMS

1. All Quiet on the Western Front – directed by Lewis Milestone 
2. King of Jazz – directed by John Murray Anderson 
3. Cimarron – directed by Wesley Ruggles 
4. Animal Crackers – directed by Victor Heerman 
5. Soup to Nuts – directed by Benjamin Stoloff 
6. Morocco – directed by Josef von Sternberg 
7. The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel) – directed by Josef von Sternberg 
8. Anna Christie – directed by Clarence Brown 
9. Hell’s Angels – directed by Howard Hughes 
10. The Big Trail – directed by Raoul Walsh
11. The Big House – directed by George Hill 
12. Murder! – directed by Alfred Hitchcock 
13. L’Âge d’Or – directed by Luis Buñuel (written by Buñuel & Salvador Dalí) 
14. Free and Easy – directed by Edward Sedgwick 
15. The Divorcee – directed by Robert Z. Leonard 
16. Whoopee! – directed by Thornton Freeland

ANIMATION AND CHARACTERS

1. Betty Boop (from Dizzy Dishes and others)
2. Rover (original name of Pluto)
3. Blondie and Dagwood (from Blondie comic strips)
4. Flip the Frog (Ub Iwerks)
5. Nine early Mickey Mouse cartoons
6. Early Mickey Mouse comic strips
7. Ten early Silly Symphonies cartoons 

MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS 

1. I Got Rhythm — music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
2. I’ve Got a Crush on You — music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
3. But Not for Me — music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
4. Embraceable You — music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin
5. Georgia on My Mind — music by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Stuart Gorrell
6. Dream a Little Dream of Me — music by Fabian Andre & Wilbur Schwandt, lyrics by Gus Kahn
7. Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight — music and lyrics by Al Sherman & Al Lewis
8. On the Sunny Side of the Street — music by Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Dorothy Fields
9. It Happened in Monterey — music by Mabel Wayne, lyrics by Billy Rose
10. Body and Soul — music by Johnny Green, lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour & Frank Eyton
11. Just a Gigolo — music by Leonello Casucci, lyrics by Julius Brammer; English lyrics by Irving Caesar
12. You’re Driving Me Crazy — music and lyrics by Walter Donaldson
13. Beyond the Blue Horizon — music by Richard A. Whiting & W. Franke Harling, lyrics by Leo Robin
14. The Royal Welch Fusiliers — music by John Philip Sousa

New year. New material. New ideas. No rights required.

Oh, and do you want the ADVANCED public domain strategy?  

Since it takes a while to make a musical . . . look at what’s coming 2-3 years from now.  And start writing today.  Click here to see that list. 

(Source: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/) 

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