Blog Stage - Acting in Film, TV, Theatre - Backstage

AMPTP Submits Final Offer

Only six hours away from the expiration of SAG’s TV/Theatrical pact, the AMPTP says they’ve presented SAG with their final offer.

A statement sent moments ago by spokesman Jesse Hiestand reads, “In an effort to put everyone back to work, the AMPTP today presented SAG our final offer--a comprehensive proposal worth more than $250 million in additional compensation to SAG members with significant economic gains and groundbreaking new-media rights for all performers.”

However, Rosenberg, Allen, and their SAG supporters might not be so thrilled. The statement describes the $250 million offer as “consistent with the four other labor agreements already reached this year.” At the same time the AMPTP says their offer to SAG “addresses issues that SAG identified as being of utmost concern to its members, including tailoring our new media framework for SAG in areas such as feature films and significant gains for working actors.”

“Consistent” yet “tailored?” Can you be a little more specific, please? Sure… Kind of. According to the “background materials” posted on AMPTP’s site, the tailored-for-SAG deal doubles the residual rate for permanent downloads, preserves performers’ clip consent, broadens “definition of ‘covered performers’ in low-budget New Media productions”--a nod to background players?—and promises actors “full access to companies’ un-redacted New Media deal memos”—so they know what the producers are up to ostensibly.

Doubled residuals rates sound like quite a concession in SAG's favor. But the wise Jonathan Handel tells me the DGA, WGA, and AFTRA got the same in their new-media deals. Handel also reports the AMPTP has offered to meet with SAG again on Wednesday, but also states it will not entertain counter-offers.

 Will this absolutely final, take-it-or-leave-it offer be enough for the guild leaders to call off their “vote no” anti-AFTRA war and sign on the line that is dotted? I’m guessing they’re hardly doing cartwheels across the courtyard of 5757 Wilshire.

As for whether crew members and working actors should show up for work tomorrow, the studios’ org. says, “We will continue for now to work under the terms of the old contract as current productions wind down.” No word yet from SAG—though I’m sure there will be soon.

Man, this is turning into nail-bitter. Break out the guacamole and six packs. It’s gonna be a bumpy night.

--Lauren Horwitch

 

Broadway's Off-Stage Theatre Families

From the Barrymores to the Hammersteins, Broadway has traditionally been a family business. But even off stage, in trades tangentially related to the theatre, you'll find clans to rival the famous theatre dynasties. Robert Simonson introduces today's New York Times readers to a few of them, including the restaurateurs, hatters, ticket takers, and bartenders who keep Broadway and Times Square fed and furnished.

“You hear sometimes that corporations don’t want husbands and wives working together,” says Tim Young, a bartender who brought his son into the business. “There’s no fight against nepotism in the theater.”

Read the full story here.

-- Daniel Lehman

Photo: Mark Rubin (left) and his father, Arnold Rubin, of Arnold Hatters. Photo by Fred R. Conrad, courtesy of the New York Times.

Will Broadway Soon Get the Same Tax Breaks as Films in NYC?

Variety reports that The Broadway League "has inititiated a concerted effort to secure, initially from New York City but also from the state, the same sort of tax breaks offered to screen producers, who get tax credits of 30% on in-state, below-the-line costs, with an additional 5% in Gotham."

The tax incentive has encouraged significant growth in the number of film and TV productions shooting in NYC. But those tax breaks were designed to lure projects from outside the city -- how could Broadway need the same financial bait?

The league (formerly The League of American Theatres and Producers) argues that as costs in Manhattan continue to skyrocket, "developmental work is beginning to migrate to other locales," according to Variety. Therefore, the argument goes, although Broadway is rooted firmly in midtown Manhattan, theatre producers and their money could go elsewhere.

This seems very unlikely. But, in an apparent scare tactic, Variety notes that the Broadway league is also aiming to "educate" city and state agencies about Broadway's greater economic contribution to the city.  For example, a successful Broadway production sticks around a lot longer than a movie shoot, whose typical three-month duration is dwarfed by, for instance, the 20-years-and-counting run of Phantom of the Opera. In addition, they argue that the chance to act on Broadway is what attracts so much new film and TV talent to the city in the first place. And more than any other entertainment option, Broadway theatre draws people out of their homes and into area businesses.

It all sounds pretty convincing. That is, until you realize that no matter what, New York theatre is probably not going anywhere, and doesn't seem to have a lot to bargain with in the first place.  I call your bluff, Broadway.

-- Daniel Lehman

Monday Night 'Models Karaoke'

Monday nights are getting a lot more glamorous, especially at the Belmont Lounge in NYC, where DJ Addie Addie now hosts "Models Karaoke" every week.

Addie says she decided to hold the weekly karaoke event at Belmont Lounge "because of the beautiful models that are there. I knew it was already a popular hangout for models and actors, and karaoke is just a fun form of entertainment. Monday nights are full of beauty, and the models that perform are really talented singers."

All singers and performers are invited to show up and sing. No, you don't have to be a model (you don't even have to be able to sing -- this is karaoke, after all), but it always helps, doesn't it?

DJ Addie Addie hosts "Models Karaoke" every Monday night, 8 p.m.-2 a.m. at the Belmont Lounge,  117 E. 15th St., NYC. Karaoke entertainment is provided by My Friends Entertainment (MFE). Admission is free; no drink minimum required.

Click here to read about more of the unique karaoke experiences New York City has to offer.

-- Daniel Lehman

Aspiring Actors Make Their Own Work

This weekend, the New York Times featured a story about how several working actors made various sacrifices and came together in New York to stage a temporary showcase run of a 50-year-old play in June, "in what amounted to a master class on the sacrifices actors will make to get onstage in Manhattan. On a limited budget the group pulled together a two-week test run of a complicated, three-act play, Epitaph for George Dillon, with the hope that a producer might want to stage it."

From the NY Times:

There was barely enough money to rent a small, shabby theater and buy costumes at consignment shops. For the director and the actors, some of whom had left behind jobs and families in California, there were no salaries and no reimbursement of expenses...

When [lead actress Anna Garduño] learned that it would cost $1,000 to rent a curtain for the theater, she had one made for $200. Rather than pay $75 a night to have the theater provide a fire marshal, she convinced the assistant stage manager, Elle Aghabala, to go to Brooklyn and take the fire department’s test that qualified her to guard against a fire backstage. Within an hour of the final curtain call, a crew member dashed off to return the rented computer that had provided sound for the show, to avoid another day’s rental fee.

The ad hoc troupe expended all of this effort and sacrifice on the long shot that somebody would be inspired to produce the play. At least, they hoped, it would lead to more work, preferably of the sort that pays.

Cast member Michael Rodgers is almost 40, and is looking for his third temporary home since he left L.A. three months ago, while also working on the soap As The World Turns. Denise Crosby, who played Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation, left her husband and 9-year-old son in Pacific Palisades and talked her way into a temporary apartment in Harlem. Garduño has been sleeping on a fold-out couch in the Greenwich Village home office of some friends.

The cast received no pay for the first 12 performances. But after that, as the Times' Patrick McGeehan reports, "Equity rules mandate that the players be paid $10 each per show. So each cast member got a check for $20 at the end of the run, or about 50 cents for each hour of performance." Director (and acting coach) Larry Moss worked for no pay.

Read the full story here.

Of course, this story may seem a lot less remarkable or unique to the countless actors, writers, and directors who face the same struggles and frustrations every day as they try to foster a career in this city. In fact, in an article published today on BackStage.com called "Making Your Own Luck," Sarah Reiter describes how two actor-writers are creating their own projects to take control of their careers in L.A.

Do you have a  similar story? Have you seen any other recent productions like this, or know other people trying to jump-start their careers by working together in this way? Leave a comment and let us know!

-- Daniel Lehman

Labor Unrest, Coast to Coast

UPDATED, 9 a.m. Eastern time (adding Equity comments)

An unsettled labor situation stretched from California to New York this weekend as the three principal actors unions continued working to negotiate or ratify the most lucrative contracts in the business for theatre, film, and television.
The more critical of the two situations, of course, involves Hollywood, where SAG and AFTRA continue to wage fierce internecine battles that have defined an unprecedented period of worker strife in the entertainment industry. However, uncertainty may be revived on Broadway, where Actors' Equity Association and the Broadway League have yet to finalize a deal covering work on the Main Stem and national tours. The contract was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Monday morning, but both sides have agreed "to extend the contract on day-to-day" while they continue to negotiate, according to Equity spokeswoman Maria Somma.
"The talks remain productive and both parties are confident a fair and equitable contract will be reached," Somma said. "No specifics on the outstanding issues are available at this time."
Last November, Broadway was shuttered for 19 days during a stagehands strike. Nevertheless, the situation is not nearly as dire this time.
In Hollywood, the atmosphere remains intensely combative. A letter signed by an actor working under an AFTRA basic-cable deal implored joint cardholders to vote against the federation's broadcast prime-time TV pact, citing alleged problems he and his cast members have had with the union. Meantime, the New York division of the Screen Actors Guild made a charge of its own: that Sam Freed, president of the Gotham board and the guild's 2nd national vice president, was denied access to members' email addresses and was prevented from circulating a letter that, essentially, urges a yes vote. According to two outside labor law experts, withholding the contact information contravened the guild's past practices, and one said it might have violated federal labor law.
Additionally, SAG's TV and film agreement will expire at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, no apparent deal is in sight, and the AMPTP will have ads in tomorrow's trade papers imploring the guild to make a deal. For their part, SAG leaders have maintained that it was producers who have been stalling, not them.
Despite the highly charged environment, a third strike remains for now a remote possibility. For SAG to walk, it would need 75 percent of its members to approve, and SAG officials have not yet asked for a strike vote to be held. If they do, they would need about three weeks to complete the process, and it is far from certain they would get the required percentage. There is, however, a work slowdown, as studios have been reluctant to approve films for production while the contract situation remains unresolved. It is adding tension to a business that already lost billions of dollars during the WGA strike.
On the SAG-AFTRA front, Bruce Thomas, an actor for the ABC Family channel series Kyle XY, posted a letter on SagWatchdog.com Friday that alleges the following about AFTRA officials: "We never agreed to the terms that AFTRA negotiated after we had signed our deals; in fact, we didn't even know the show would be covered by AFTRA. ... We suffered long workdays without overtime pay, forced calls without compensation for having very little turnaround time to get to work the next day, and worked through scheduled lunch breaks with no penalties whatsoever."
Later in the letter, Thomas writes, "For a long time last year we got no satisfaction from AFTRA. They failed to respond to our phone calls or emails, and even to the phone calls and emails of our attorneys."
However, in emails obtained by Strike Watch, AFTRA denied most of the claims. A high-ranking official wrote: "The original Kyle XY contract was negotiated prior to the performer's signing their original deals."
Later, the official wrote: "We subsequently met with the cast members (and some of their agents) to update them on the outstanding grievances.... As I recall, anyone who did not get a copy of the original contract ... was sent a copy shortly thereafter by e-mail. The members' concerns as outlined in [a] meeting were raised with the company, and the priorities as defined by the members were in fact ultimately agreed to by the employer."
Attempts to contact Thomas were unsuccessful.
Internecine labor battles are not, of course, confined to SAG-AFTRA. The guild is also facing an intramural war. Freed, New York board president, tried to get access to the emails of rank-and-file members who live in the New York region to counteract an intense "Vote No" campaign by SAG-Hollywood, an effort that has included pre-recorded phone messages (or "robo-calls") from well-known actors. According to an email obtained by Strike Watch, "it has become policy at the guild to disallow the use of guild resources to express any position that does not strictly adhere to current guild policy."
In the email Freed attempted to send, he stated, "The New York Board is on the record objecting to this official interference in the internal processes of another union. That unfortunately is what these recorded messages represent."
Guild spokeswoman Pamela Greenwalt stated Freed wasn't allowed to send the email because he was not authorized to speak. "As reaffirmed by Screen Actors Guild’s Board of Directors at its March 29, 2008 meeting, SAG National President Alan Rosenberg and National Executive Director Doug Allen and their specific designees are the only official Guild spokespersons regarding the Guild’s negotiations," Greenwalt wrote in an email.
According to Stephen Diamond, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, the withholding of union resources from a minority party is a violation of the Landrum Griffin Act of 1959, which established for union members a "bill of rights" that guarantees freedom of speech and other protections. Subsequent cases heard by the Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals have affirmed those rights, including members' right access to mailing lists to express views that oppose the majority.
"The law is straightforward: Union officials bear a heavy burden to justify why they would restrain members to communicate opinions about matters on which they are to vote," Diamond said.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the guild's general counsel and deputy national executive director, responded through a SAG spokesperson:
“Some ... individuals allege that the Landrum-Griffin Act requires Screen Actors Guild to permit Guild officers to use Guild resources, including our email systems, to send messages in opposition to the Guild’s officially- and democratically-approved position on the AFTRA contract ratification vote. To the contrary, it is well-established law that the Landrum Griffin Act protects members in their exercise of their free speech rights, and does not apply to officers when they seek to use union resources they may have access to in that capacity to counteract the union’s own initiatives [emphasis Crabtree-Ireland's]."
Diamond, a former candidate for the position of SAG national executive director, replied in an email: "Freed is both an officer and a member. Here he is trying to exercise his right as a member.  Federal courts have held that members 'whose views are opposed to [the union's]...[should] have an opportunity to present their views to other members of the union.'  In other words, SAG is not allowed to discriminate against Freed simply because he is also an officer."
The case Diamond cites is Cotter v. Helmer, argued in front of the U.S. Court for New York's Southern District.
A lawyer and a former SAG official who requested anonymity partially disputed Diamond's interpretation and partially affirmed it: "Only the organization has the authority to set policy. However, the position being adopted by the current majority [Membership First] is nothing short of astounding. When their members were in the minority, they often requested the list to present an opposing view to whatever the majority had decided: merger, a contract referendum, or the agency agreement."

--Andrew Salomon

CORRECTIONS: Stephen Diamond is an associate professor of law, not an assistant professor; the Cotter v. Helmer decision was argued in U.S. District Court, not U.S. Court of Appeals; and Sam Freed, president of New York's board, only sought access to the emails, he did not try to acquire them. Strike Watch regrets the errors.

Emmys Announce Comedy and Drama Series Finalists

The short lists of the Top 10 vote-getters for outstanding drama series and outstanding comedy series, as voted on by the entire Television Academy, have been announced. The final nominees for the 60th Annual Emmy Awards will be announced July 17.

Below are the lists:

Top Ten Comedy Series Finalists
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

Top Ten Drama Series Finalists
Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

Are any of your predicted favorites still in the running? What do you think about the potential nominees? And does anyone actually care about the Top 10 in each category, or are you just waiting for the official nominations to be announced?

-- Daniel Lehman

Update: Cheeta, the Chimp Denied…Again

For the 7th year in a row, 76 year old Cheeta, the chimp from the Tarzan movies has been turned down for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

There is no Tarzan without his Cheeta.  Johnny Weismuller, who brought Tarzan to life on the silver screen, has a star.  I find it absolutely bewildering as to why Cheeta is being denied the same accolade for the same body of work.

Who are this year's recipients?

Cameron Diaz, Ben Kingsley Ralph Fiennes.  All are totally worthy recipients. Hugh Jackman is hunkily (is that word?  It should be when it comes to Hugh) worthy.  Robert Downey Jr. is worthy.  Doug Morris, a legendary man in the music business, extremely worthy.

The Latin singer Shakira?  Her worthiness is debatable. The 70's group The Village People?  I like "YMCA," but they are not as worthy as Cheeta of the celebrated star.  Disney's imaginary character Tinker Bell got one. Definitely not as worthy.  Peter Pan's trusty sidekick received a star but not Tarzan's faithful companion.  I'm sure it had no bearing on the committee's vote that there is a Disney store on Hollywood Blvd and the doesn't-really-exist character has a movie coming out in the fall.  Smells like blatant marketing.  It tarnishes the image of the legendary symbol. 

The Hollywood Walk of Fame needs to be returned to its former glory and only bestow its stars on the truly worthy.   Real live people and animals that have made a notable contribution to entertainment.  Cheeta needs to be honored while he is still with us. Not posthumously as I am afraid is what is going to happen. 

-- Liz Mikre

A New Breed of Original Cast Album? Not So Fast

Today's New York Times theater section features a story about the new crop of Broadway original cast recordings being released on CD this summer, which Stephen Holden says are "Not Your Mother's Original-Cast Albums."

Puh-leaze.

I agree that new shows like In the Heights and Passing Strange have helped revitalize the musical, but these are the only true examples of what Holden seems to think is a sea change on Broadway.

Holden himself must recognize this fallacy, as even in the opening lines of the article, he says "a surge of oxygen pours through" these two cast recordings, but you can only "feel that breeze" in the cast album of the Off-Broadway show Adding Machine. The "quiet cast album of A Catered Affair" is described by Holden, using the same metaphor, as a "faint puff of fresh air."

It is telling that Holden cannot evaluate In the Heights without comparing it to Cole Porter, West Side Story, and other Broadway musicals past, even as he extolls the score's revolutionary use of rap and other "uptown" music. And Passing Strange, he writes, features a "sarcastic Kander and Ebb spoof."

Holden also cites albums of the revivals of Gypsy and South Pacific as somehow relevant to the conversation, even though they may be the antithesis to his thesis, and are most assuredly your mother's original cast albums.

Never mind that Holden's reviews of the albums are well-written and insightful. By presenting this collection as something remarkably new, he's only showing his age. And didn't everyone say the same thing about Rent a decade ago, anyway?

Read the full story here, and let me know if you think I totally missed the point, or if Holden missed the mark.

But speaking of Rent, Holden has also written a review of actress Idina Menzel's Wednesday evening concert at Town Hall.  Menzel is perhaps best known for her roles in Rent and Wicked, as well as a recent supporting role in the film Enchanted, and has just begun a tour in support of her album I Stand. 

-- Daniel Lehman

Yes, These Things Still Happen

A production of Ragtime scheduled for a park in Wilmette, Ill., was canceled because an official who oversees the park objected to the N-word contained in the lyrics. He was worried that the word would be heard over the loudspeakers by people passing by the park.

Ordinarily, this would be a ripe opportunity to scream, but that would be too easy. Just read the objective version of the story in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ragtime, for those who may not know, is set in the early 1900s in New York and is about the birth pains of the American Century. I have never seen the musical, but I've read the novel upon which it was based. The racial epithet is used in the context of the times.

Oh, and when you get to the point in the news report about "lighthearted fare" such as Showboat? Back Stage reviews editor Erik Haagensen tells me the first word of that musical--which, by the way, contains many violent and tragic elements--is the offending racial epithet in question.

--Andrew Salomon