Casting Director Removed from Reading of NORMA RAE After Asking for Union Benefits

Broadway might be celebrating a successful season, but casting directors still are not pleased with their standing in the theatre community. The push for union representation, health care, and pension are still going strong. According to the New York Daily News, Cindy Tolan, one of a number of casting directors heading up the efforts, was just refused a spot on the production team for a reading of a NORMA RAE musical.

Tolan was asked to contribute to the project and cast the show's 29-hour reading, but when she requested the producers make a contribution to her health and pension fund through the Teamsters, she was asked to leave the NORMA RAE project.

Tolan couldn't help but recognize the irony of the situation, calling it "obvious and palpable." NORMA RAE tells the story of a textile worker in the 1970's who faces adversity and firing as she tries to unionize her felllow factory workers. Tolan says in her case, "casting directors simply want what all our other fellow artists and colleagues on Broadway receive."

Casting directors currently receive protection and benefits through the Teamsters Local 817, but only when they're working in film or television. The Broadway League has been approached about the issue, but classifies casting directors as independent contractors and refuses to grant their requests. Recently, Broadway's producers sued their casting directors and called their union campaign a "cartel."

The coalition of unions, collectively representing more than one million workers in the public sector, hospitality, construction, healthcare, and other key industries, gave their support for the casting directors' campaign for healthcare, retirement, and a union.

"New York is a union town, and nowhere more so than Broadway," their letter reads. "It is troubling, therefore, that Broadway producers are denying casting directors the same union rights that every other worker on Broadway enjoys."

For more from the New York Daily News, click here.

Photo Credit: Jessica Fallon Gordon