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

Less Color in Your TV: Onscreen Diversity in Decline

“Undercovers” was not very good. Neither were “Outsourced,” “Outlaw,” and “The Event.” Hell, neither were most of the new shows on NBC’s schedule last fall, which is a big reason why many of them are not on NBC’s schedule this fall. Sometimes bad TV shows rake in huge ratings (see Sheen, Charlie), and sometimes they get canceled. Them’s the breaks.

SAG Elections Update: Howard, Aquino, Vaughn to Attend N.Y. Campaign Event With Hodge, USAN

• United Screen Actors Nationwide will host a meet-the-candidates event this week featuring guild president Ken Howard, national secretary-treasurer Amy Aquino, 1st national vice president Ned Vaughn, New York division president Mike Hodge, New York vice president Rebecca Damon, and others. Howard and Aquino have endorsed Hodge and the rest of the USAN slate, which is facing a campaign challenge from splinter group One Strong Union. The event will take place Thursday, Aug. 25, at Gossip Bar & Restaurant, 733 9th Ave., between 49th and 50th Streets. SAG members can RSVP at [email protected].

• Speaking of USAN, the group claims to be the first SAG political party to have developed its own mobile Web app. Users visiting USANforOneUnion.com via iPhone will be greeted with a prompt giving them the opportunity to download the app.

• And speaking of One Strong Union, Sam Robards, who is challenging Hodge for New York president, took to the group's blog today with an open letter to members. In the message, Robards criticized the new TV-theatrical contract finalized earlier this year for not including greater changes to new media provisions. "[In] 2011 we did not make great strides in New Media, which disappointed me as a member of the negotiating team," Robards wrote. "There was no effort to reduce streaming windows; no serious consideration given to alternate models for residuals payments, such as percentage-based residuals."

SAG Elections Update: About That Earnings Report ...

• SAG's annual earnings report is in. Not that anyone was expecting good news, but that 11.1-percent drop in principal session fees is pretty gnarly. The Hollywood Reporter has the deepest analysis. Deadline has the Sturm und Drang.

• One Strong Union—the pro-merger group that is challenging fellow pro-merger group United Screen Actors Nationwide for control of the New York division—has once again updated its blog, this time with an endoresement from former board member Ralph Byers and open letters from candidates Joe Narciso and Andrew Dolan. OSU has definitely been using the Web and social media more aggressively than any other faction in New York or L.A. USAN's Twitter feed has had one lonely tweet on it since July 26, and neither USAN nor L.A.'s Unite for Strength seems much interested in updating the news feed of its website (except, in UFS's case, to republish the occasional SAG press release or trade article). Meanwhile, OSU appears to be updating its blog almost daily. Whether any of that will make a difference is impossible to tell.

• Finally, if you haven't yet tired of hitting that paywall, here's a Variety piece from a few days ago about how boring the WGA election is.

Dream Big, Realistically: Of Small Casts and Big Economics

It’s no secret that theater casts are getting smaller. With theater companies across the country facing tough financial decisions, scheduling more small-cast or one-person shows and fewer large-cast productions provides a proven way to stretch increasingly scarce funding dollars. Of course, that means fewer jobs for actors. As Actors’ Equity Association noted in its most recent annual report, the 2009-10 season was the second straight in which the number of jobs for Equity members declined. The report went so far as to link those declines directly to “seasons and shows becoming smaller.” For this, of course, you can thank the giant vampire squids who ruined the economy and the elected officials who have adopted a Bến Tre strategy for saving it.

SAG Elections Update: Hodge, Robards Talk to Back Stage

Between now and the end of SAG elections in September, we'll be keeping you posted on all election-related news big and small, giving you updates from BackStage.com and as many other sources as you can handle. More sources than you can handle. More sources than you could possibly even want. Let's get started.

• We recently spoke to New York division president Mike Hodge and his challenger, Sam Robards. Those short interviews are up over at BackStage.com.

• Also at BackStage.com, a short bit about claims by Robards' group One Strong Union that its campaign site was hacked.

• More from OSU: The group's blog republished an old essay by board candidate Corey Anker from AFTRA's New York local newsletter, Standby.

• This is a few days old, but we haven't mentioned it anywhere yet. Unite for Strength announced via Twitter that it will hold a meet-the-candidates event Sept. 7.

• Finally, if you're running for SAG or WGA board, our colleagues at the Hollywood Reporter would like to ask you a few questions.

Actors Get Political

Alec Baldwin has New York City mayoral aspirations, but he isn’t ready to run just yet. According to The New York Times, Baldwin wants to finish his work on NBC’s “30 Rock”(his contract ends in Spring 2012) and enroll in a master’s program in politics and government before entering the world of campaigns and elections.

AFTRA Soaps Up: Union in 'AMC,' 'OLTL' Talks

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is in discussions with Prospect Park over the entertainment firm’s plans to turn “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” into Web series. Talks began shortly after the company announced earlier this month that it would license the rights to the shows from ABC, which will cease broadcasting the long-running soaps this year. AFTRA is in the process of scheduling meetings with cast members to address their concerns and advise them of their rights under the union’s Network Code agreement.

Producers Negotiating With Unions Over ABC Soaps?

When fledgling entertainment firm Prospect Park announced earlier this month that it had reached a licensing deal with ABC to move recently canceled soap operas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" to the web, questions arose. Thus far, few of them have been answered. Soaps have proved to be too costly for the major networks, and with no set model for making the kind of money on the web that is required to produce a full season year of a daytime drama—roughly $50 million—many wondered whether Prospect Park would have to scale its new acquisitions down to make them work on the web, and how that would affect on-screen talent.

Prospect Park took a baby step today toward addressing those concerns when it issued the following statement:

AFTRA Re-elects President; Apple Joins Hulu Talks

• The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has re-elected Roberta Reardon as the union’s national president. A supporter of the current effort to merge AFTRA and the Screen Actors Guild, Reardon will be serving her third two-year term. Read the story at Back Stage.

• According to the Los Angeles Times, Apple has now joined the mix of companies in talks to buy Hulu. Both Google and Yahoo are in talks as well, and it is estimated the site could go for as much as $2 billion.

• Netflix and Dreamworks Animation are in the process of completing a deal that would give online streaming rights for the studio’s films to Netflix during the pay TV Window. According to Deadline, HBO currently controls these rights until 2014, and it is questionable whether the network will let Dreamworks out of the contract early.

• The Chilean miners who were trapped underground last year for 69 days have sold the rights to their story to big screen producer Mike Medavoy (“Shutter Island,” “Black Swan”). Film production is scheduled to begin next year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Pictured: Roberta Reardon (Photo: Getty Images) 

IA Shakes Things Up

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IA), the union that represents nearly 120,000 people who work behind the scenes of movies and TV shows, is shaking things up with the help of President Matt Loeb. Loeb, who took over in 2008, has put the entertainment industry’s largest union on an aggressive course, according to The Los Angeles Times. IA conducted a high-profile strike of the TV show “The Biggest Loser” in Los Angeles last November and has recently picketed U2’s new documentary for the band’s decision to use a nonunion crew.

Loeb is also rearranging things inside IA as well. He has hired a research firm to survey union members about their health and pension plans and will hold “town meetings” to discuss changes they would like to see. Loeb’s initiatives also include teaming up with other unions to provide mutual assistance and expanding IA to include visual-effects artists.