AEA fighting with the League over choice to give "The Lost Colony" a Tony Honor — Page 3

With apologies to the first five years and all the other valiant souls who have labored at The Lost Colony over the decades, I have distinct memories of seeing The Lost Colony back in the mid 60s as a 10-year-old. Our folks wanted to combine our yearly camping trip to the Great Smokies with a bit of culture. (A previous year, we had a night out at The Stephen Foster Story, a similar pageant featuring hits from the Great American Songbook.)

These shows (IMHO) were pure pageant, despite the hours of rehearsal involved, not much different than the one invisioned by Corky St Clair in "Waiting For Guffman". Jingoistic, patriotic to a fault, propaganda for the great American myth our forebears wanted to pass on to future generations. Is this theater? Well, yes, of a sort. But is it theatrical artistry at the level to deserve the honor of a Tony? I'd claim not.

And if we want to give an award for a production know for its longevity that has influenced generations, how about giving one to The Fantasticks?

Updated On: 5/4/13 at 01:14 PM

^Thanks Kad. My work here is done then.

^ That is what I was thinking, given that he is the source cited here. It probably isn't as bad as he's making it out to be.

---

"A theatre interested in using an Equity member has to get Equity's permission, and the moment you ask for permission to use someone, they want your budgets, your box office records, your production history, funding sources, and then THEY decide what contract they would consider, often greatly overstepping reality, and they won't accept anything less. This is why so few theatres are keen to enter an agreement with Equity. I can't tell you how many times I've seen AEA members work under fake names so they could take a job at a theatre where Equity refused a reasonable agreement."

And yet numerous small companies across the country manage to find a way to use both the special appearance and guest artist contract without nearly the hassle you describe. Yes, transitioning into a full contract is not easy and does take some work, but the times when they decide to withhold the use of the guest artist or special appearance contract are probably not occurring as often as you seem to think. I know of a couple of cases where an actor was approached to scab (they turned the offer down) because the producer did not want to be bothered with "having to follow the rules" that come with using a guest artist agreement.

We can go round and round here. For every time a producer thinks Equity is being unreasonable and won't negotiate with them you can find a situation where it's the opposite and a producer refuses to negotiate with Equity.

I'm not saying that every theatre across the country should only employ Equity actors. There is certainly value in the productions that are produced on the community theatre and non-union professional level. I cut my teeth doing non-union work and touring and value what I learned during those times. I'm well aware that there are both wonderfully talented and terribly deluded actors and stage managers on both sides of the membership fence. My original foray into this thread was just to state that I don't think it unreasonable for Equity, as a union that exists to protect and promote its members, to voice their opinion/concern over the decision to hand out this honorary award.

And Kad of course does bring up a good point that Riedel is inflating the level of this controversy for his own means. It certainly wouldn't be the first time he exaggerated the facts to suit his own means.

Drammamamma- yes I do- I have no bee - just because the truth is ugly doesn't mean there is a bee or ill-will it is just truth I was a personal witness to this- an observer of the close kind-:) and using what he referred to as "attic shops" all I can say

It means individuals who might have their own costume shop usually 5 or less people and usually out of their apartment or home kind of thing or a commercial place 8 by 10 feet, etc.

I love the Oliviers aren't so closed minded in terms of what/who they nominate.

The sort of are, though. Other than opening up lead performances to acclaimed replacements, the nominations are still attached to a specifically defined pool of eligible theatres. They have additional categories for other forms or performance (opera and dance, for example), but fewer categories in design, direction, performances and nothing for orchestrations or score.

And while it is indeed their award and they can ultimately do what they wish, since Equity is involved in a fairly major way they can, and should, voice their objection (especially if the League and the Wing are going to claim people were at this meeting who weren't and try to imply that everyone who was there was in agreement with this).

Their objection to what?!?! A special award? The Tony awards are already designated to Broadway productions, which are all union. A special honor means it is not for one of the Broadway production Tonys, so why does Equity believe they should lay claim to it?

It's all a bit silly. I did a production of "Cabaret" where I played the lead. There was one Equity contract in the show. It was a Kit-Kat Girl. She got paid 3x what I was getting paid as the Non-Equity lead because she was Equity. That's so silly. She's only in one act, and only in a handful of scenes. That's when I thought the whole Equity thing was just silly.

Sounds like the silly thing is whoever decided they need to pay her an Equity salary for that role. Either she had some sort of special skill required for the part, nobody else auditioned and nobody else was available, or she was someone's "special friend".

I totally get how producers can take advantage of actors in non-Equity productions. It happened to me when I was given an "understudy" contract and paid less than the rest of the cast in an ensemble show, but was given a regular part to perform every performance and expected to fill in as a swing to all the other roles. I refused to renew my contract and walked away. Had I been Equity, I would not have been considered in the first place and seeing as it wasn't in NYC, I'd have very few opportunities. That's how it works for most of the country and that ain't gonna change unless all professional theatres across the country magically make enough money to pay union wages, which would be a first for...planet Earth.

I also live in an "at-will" employment state. I know that and I accept it.

---

Updated On: 5/7/13 at 10:12 PM