SAG-AFTRA Locked In Dispute With Actors’ Equity Over Taping Of Live Theater

[IAMREADING]

At the heart of this dispute, detailed in Deadline (https://deadline.com/2020/10/sag-aftra-actors-equity-dispute-live-theater-taping-1234593269/#comments), is "longtime Equity employers signing with SAG-AFTRA, often for performances taking place in a theater so it can be captured for future use."

I am making an assumption here, and I hope it can come to fruition under fair labor conditions, but it sounds like it is possible Broadway productions are trying to film their current show? 

 

edited to add the NYTimes has more details, seems to be only smaller regional theaters right now:

"Among the theaters named by Equity as normally producing with that union but now working with SAG-AFTRA are the Guthrie, a leading regional nonprofit in Minneapolis; North Coast Repertory Theater, in Solana Beach, Calif.; and TheaterWorks Hartford. But the practice appears to be increasingly pervasive as the pandemic drags on — just this week the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia said it would film a site-specific production of “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,” with its performers represented by SAG-AFTRA, not Equity."

[missthemountains]

Good. I work in the industry, and I've been a producer. Even though Equity/IATSE/SDC thinks that they are doing the right thing by trying to take a stand against streaming or preservation, they're so unbelievably wrong that it's almost comical. At this point, it's doing way more harm than good. Streaming plays is the future, and it's here. Better have everyone involved in a show that's filmed for TV get paid tiny residuals like in TV than nothing at all.

[goldenboy]

Leave it to the miss management of Mary McCall of Actors Equity (who has a salary of 400,000 per year)

to screw actors over. She's been doing that since she's been elected head of equity. 

 

[HogansHero]

It only takes a few posts around here to create chaos and confusion. Let's try to sort things out a little. 

1. This has nothing to do with whether streaming is good or bad, whether it is the future, the final nail in the coffin, or something in between. 

2. Filming/taping/broadcasting a play that is not being performed live for an audience in a theatre is not theatre. 

3. This is a pandemic-related subject presently, though it has implications beyond. 

4. Recording a play that IS being performed live for an audience in a theatre has been an area of compromise. If there is no compromise, Equity loses. 

[teatime2]

I'm really sick and tired of the pompous gatekeeping of what theater is right now on this board. We are in a Pandemic. I don't know why you all care so much to enforce rules and regulations. Theatre is going to be presented in new ways in order for it to survive. Just because we aren't in a packed house doesn't make it any less "theater like". Things are going to change and be bizarre, but instead of breaking it down and not calling it theatre, let's lift it up and celebrate the hard work that is being done. 

[HogansHero]

teatime2 said: "I'm really sick and tired of the pompous gatekeeping of what theater is right now on this board. We are in a Pandemic. I don't know why you all care so much to enforce rules and regulations. Theatre is going to be presented in new ways in order for it to survive. Just because we aren't in a packed house doesn't make it any less "theater like". Things are going to change and be bizarre, but instead of breaking it down and not calling it theatre, let's lift it up and celebrate the hard work that is being done."

I'm not sure if any of that is directed at me, but as I said in my first numbered paragraph, this thread is about a union dispute, not the benefits or detriments of streaming etc during a pandemic. Pre-pandemic, I was negative on streaming, filming etc. Post-pandemic I will be again. In the interim, as I have written a number of times, I think anything we can do to "lift up and celebrate the hard work that is being done" is a good thing. But that doesn't mean that two unions are just going to take a laissez-faire attitude toward their jurisdiction, which is an existential threat.

[Kad]

goldenboy said: "Leave it to the miss management of Mary McCall of Actors Equity (who has a salary of 400,000 per year)

to screw actors over. She's been doing that since she's been elected head of equity.

"

McColl is not in an elected position at Equity; as executive director, she is staff. And as has been discussed here before after you brought it up once, her salary is commensurate with the position and she has taken a pay cut.

 

If people actually read the articles here, you’d see that SAG-AFTRA’s agreements typically leave out stage managers. This is not AEA preventing something and SAG allowing it- this is AEA being cut out entirely. 
 

As Hogan notes: this is not about the concept of streaming or archiving live productions. Theaters are essentially creating broadcast works in the pandemic- work that was never meant to be seen by a live audience, but rather meant solely to be streamed. For the purposes of SAG and AEA, who each have specific jurisdictions, the question of what is and is not theater is central. It’s not gatekeeping, it is literally determining what sort of contracts the people working these sign.