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

Patrick and the Pirates: The Fate of the Protect IP Act

Poor Patrick Leahy. All the Democratic senator from Vermont (and star of “The Dark Knight”) wants is to pass a far-reaching anti-piracy bill that critics say would trample civil liberties and potentially threaten the entire Internet’s fundamental security structure. But nobody will let him. By “nobody,” we mean Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who last month placed a procedural hold on Leahy’s Protect IP Act the same day that the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Leahy chairs, gave it unanimous approval. Wyden—who is from the Pacific Northwest and thus presumably spends all his free time farming organic root vegetables and distributing socialist leaflets—did the same thing last year when Leahy introduced the similar Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. But Wyden felt no better about the new bill than he did about its predecessor. As the old saying goes, you can put lipstick on the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, but it’s still the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act.

Dr. Death: Will Couric Pull the Plug on 'General Hospital'?

Katie Couric wants to be the new Oprah Winfrey. But might she be the new Luke and Laura? On Monday, ABC announced that it had signed Couric to a ginormous deal that will make her host of her own hour-long daytime talk show, a regular contributor to ABC News, and the odds-on favorite for Disney employee of the month. (The winner gets a free Mickey Mouse ice cream bar—the kind with the chocolate ears.) But snuggled deep in the press release announcing the hire is a paragraph that should send shivers through anyone who works in or watches soap operas:

The Road From Rhode Island: Tax Credits in Decline

“Body of Proof,” the ABC drama about Dana Delany’s legs, is relocating from Rhode Island to Los Angeles. The move comes in the wake of ABC receiving approval for a $7 million California tax credit for the series, and word that Gov. Lincoln Chafee wants to dismantle the teensiest state’s own production tax incentive program. If you’re an actor and live in L.A., congratulations—your prospect of finding work just got a little bit better. If you live in Rhode Island, well, hey, there’s always Massachusetts.

Death by Committee: AFTRA's Trouble With Names

Would you rather have a New Union Committee or a Merger Task Force? On Saturday, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artist’s national board of directors voted to create the AFTRA New Union Committee. The new body will consist of 13 members (and 26 alternates), and work with its Screen Actors Guild counterpart, the SAG Merger Task Force, to develop a plan that will culminate in the unions holding hands and singing the 1996 Spice Girls hit “2 Become 1.” The two groups have been charged to hold their first joint meeting before the end of June and to have a merger plan in place to present to the boards of directors before the end of January. It’s all very exciting. For the first time since merger began being discussed again with seriousness in SAG-AFTRA circles in 2009, something resembling a concrete (or at least a wire mesh-and-stucco) timeline for the process exists. But one important question remains unanswered. Who is winning the contest for the better committee name?

Getting Carded: Equity Welcomes New Members in NYC

The Actors’ Equity Association new-member reception is one of the great unsung rituals of the New York theater world. That it’s so unsung is surprising. You’d think in a room full of that many stage actors, somebody would sing something.

Spoiler Alert: Why the 'Glee' Extra (Sort of) Matters

By now, people everywhere—or at least those who have too much time on their hands and don’t care about real news—know the story of Nicole Crowther, the “Glee” extra who tweeted a spoiler about an upcoming episode and immediately became the most reviled girl in all of Internetland. After Crowther revealed the identity of McKinley High’s prom queen (sadly, it’s not Carrie White), “Glee” fans took to message boards to call for her head. Then series co-creator Brad Falchuk threatened her career via Twitter, saying that he hoped the actor was “qualified to do something besides work in entertainment.” Then Donald Trump demanded to see her birth certificate.

Emerald City Blues: Intiman Cancellation Has Big Impact

Not even a month ago, things were looking hopeful for Seattle’s embattled Intiman Theatre. That hope has now evaporated. Just more than two weeks after Intiman officials said that they had raised enough through emergency fundraising to keep their doors open, the theater’s board of directors announced this past weekend that they had canceled the remainder of artistic director Kate Whoriskey’s season and laid off the theater’s staff—eliminating dozens of jobs on and off stage at a critical time for U.S. arts organizations.

Chasing JPMorgan: On AFTRA, Retirement, and Merger

Just in case you forgot, the folks who perpetrated this whole worst-financial-crisis-since-the-Great-Depression thing were bankers. Not public school teachers, not undocumented Mexican immigrants, and not whoever thought remaking “Arthur” with Russell Brand was a good idea. They were bankers, people—cigar-chomping, orphan-kicking, Rich Uncle Pennybags–looking bankers. And they deserve your scorn.

The COICA Hangover: Congress Targets Piracy (Again)

A gaggle of lawmakers gathered in Washington on Monday—Washington being to lawmakers what cool mountain forests are to giant pandas and emergency rooms are to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” performers—to renew calls for Congressional action against online content piracy. Senate and House members from both parties declared their intention to, as Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., put it, “[Come] together to carefully craft legislation.” Well, at least they’re going to be careful about it. Safety first.

Now in Netflix News: The New Streaming Reality

And now some recent headlines from the world of entertainment: “Netflix nears over $100 million deal with Miramax” (Reuters, March 26); “Starz to delay new series on Netflix streaming, movies may follow” (Los Angeles Times, March 24); “Showtime to pull current shows off Netflix” (Deadline, March 22); “Netflix makes it official: We’re in the TV game with ‘House of Cards’ ” (The Wrap, March 18); “Sarandos: Netflix doesn’t devalue content” (Variety, March 10).

So what can we learn from reading all that stuff between the quotation marks, semicolons, and parentheses? Two things. First, headline writing is a dead art form—gone, sadly, are the days of great works such as “Headless Body in Topless Bar” and “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” Sigh. Second, Netflix is everywhere. Let’s discuss that second thing for a moment.