"Broadway is dark tonight”

As Stagehands Strike, Broadway Shows Don’t Go On – New York Times

Is there something in the air? First the Writer’s Guild strike and now this one. This is probably a popular (and potent) time to strike since the holidays are beginning and we are nearing the end of the calendar year.

The dispute has largely been over the rules in the contract that govern how many stagehands must be called for work, how long they work, and what kind of tasks they can perform. League members say the current rules invariably result in groups of stagehands on the clock with nothing to do.

This year the league, an organization typically weakened by its natural divisions between producers and the theater owners to whom they pay rent, has been determined to gain more flexibility in those rules.

Union officials have said they are open to changes as long as the new rules come with benefits of equal value in return. The league has proposed a package of raises, but James J. Claffey Jr., the Local One president, has said there is no way to determine the amount of stagehand work that will be lost under the looser rules that the producers are proposing. About a quarter of the 2,200 active members of Local One, who build scenery, maintain props and install and operate lighting and sound equipment, work on Broadway.

Stagehands fall into four wage categories. The highest-paid, like head carpenters and electricians, currently earn a minimum of $1,600 a week on a running show; stagehands in the lowest-paid category make a minimum of around $1,225. With overtime, additional work assignments and certain premium payments, wages can end up being quite a bit higher.

$1,225 per week is over $63,000 yearly and that’s not bad – at least not in DC. Perhaps in NYC that’s poverty level considering rents and all.

OK – so I don’t know all the details but I feel bad for all the people who are visiting NYC and may not get another chance to see a show.

Oh yeah – Happy Veterans Day.

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Tags: strike, Broadway, union, wage, life, stage, theatre, stagehands

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No "Daily Show” tonight? Boo Hoo.

Screenwriters Picket as Strike Begins – New York Times

More than 12,000 movie and television writers represented by the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East walked out today, after three months of acrimonious negotiations proved fruitless. It is the first industrywide strike by writers since 1988; that strike lasted five months and cost the entertainment industry an estimated $500 million.The sides have been at odds over, among other things, writers’ demands for a large increase in pay for movies and television shows released on DVD, and for a bigger share of the revenue from such work delivered over the Internet.

A federal mediator, who joined the talks last week, asked the sides to continue talking in a Sunday session, but neither a deal nor an agreement to keep talking was reached.

Writers in Los Angeles have also begun picketing more than a dozen studios and production sites in four-hour shifts, one beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific time, the other at 1 p.m.

Yes, I think the creative types (writers) should get more dough. The internet issue should be addressed even though I expect it will mean that YouTube and other sites will be devastated of their content.

I will miss you, Jon Stewart!

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Tags: writers, strike, entertainment, TV, movies, internet