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      Hollywood Strikes: Labor Day Looms as Crisis Point

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      Ongoing strikes could disrupt the entertainment industry in fundamental ways, putting the 2024 box office and the fall broadcast lineup in jeopardy.In May, when 11,500 movie and television writers went on strike, Hollywood companies like Netflix, NBCUniversal and Disney reacted with what amounted to a shrug. The walkout wasn’t great, but executives had expected it for months. They could ride it out.The angry response from Hollywood’s corporate ranks when actors went out on Friday was dramatically different. What began as an inconvenience has become a crisis.For a start, the actors’ union is much more powerful than the writers’ guild, with a membership of about 160,000 that includes world-famous celebrities studied in the art of delivering messages to captivated audiences. The film and TV scripts that studios had banked in case of a writers’ strike have been suddenly rendered inert, deprived of actors to bring them to life. Numerous big-budget movies that had been shooting had to shut down immediately, including “Twisters,” “Venom 3,” “Deadpool 3” and “Gladiator 2.”In interviews, three studio chairs who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the labor situation, said Hollywood’s content factories could sit idle for little more than a month — roughly until Labor Day — until there would be a serious impact on the release calendar for 2024, particularly for movies. A work stoppage that stretches into September could force studios to delay big projects for next year by six months, making 2024 resemble the ghost town of recent memory set off by the Covid-19 pandemic.Studios had just gotten the release schedule looking normal again, with one big movie following another. Another significant lull in offerings may be devastating for theaters. This year’s box office has already been underwhelming and, with striking actors barred from publicity efforts, films scheduled for the second half of 2023 could be affected — especially those with awards aspirations. One of the studio executives on Friday predicted it could imperil at least one of the national cinema chains.Bobbie Bagby Ford, the chief creative officer and executive vice president of B&B Theatres, a midlevel chain with more than 50 locations in 14 states, said the strikes “have impacted the industry at a difficult time.”“The duration of the ongoing strike will play a significant role in its impact on cinemas,” Ms. Bagby Ford said. “If it remains short enough to prevent an overwhelming backlog of movies, the situation can be managed.”Greg Marcus, chief executive of the Marcus Corporation — which owns the fourth-largest theater chain in the country — agreed that the strikes were unnerving but said they were less threatening to the industry than the pandemic.“Depending on the length of time, there could be a gap in a year,” Mr. Marcus said. “But it’s not like being closed for months on end, people debating the value of theatrical, and then big gaps because of production delays.”Labor Day will arrive in a heartbeat, which would seem to prompt studios to break the standstill with the actors sooner rather than later. But there’s a problem: Studio executives were genuinely surprised by the Screen Actors Guild’s reaction to their proposed terms. They felt they had made significant concessions and were stunned by the union’s rhetoric, especially since they were able to amicably negotiate a lucrative new contract in 2020.The proposed terms included increased pay, protections around the audition process and more favorable terms for pension and health contributions. They also offered that dancers receive an on-camera rate for rehearsal days.In particular, the studios — acknowledging in private conversations that they had made a mistake by largely ignoring the writers’ demands for guardrails around artificial intelligence — proposed terms for use of A.I. that their negotiators said would protect actors.But it wasn’t enough to avert a strike. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the actors’ chief negotiator, said in an interview on Saturday that the studio’s proposal was unreasonable. The artificial intelligence terms jeopardize “the entire field of acting,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said, adding that studios also weren’t offering actors revenue participation in streaming.“Those are the core issues,” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland said. “And the fact that the companies won’t move on them reflects a colonial attitude toward the workers who are the entire basis of the existence of their companies.” He said actors want to begin bargaining again.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the studios, disputed Mr. Crabtree-Ireland’s characterization of its members’ attitudes, citing terms of its proposal including a “groundbreaking A.I. proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”An empty red carpet for Disney’s premiere of “Haunted Mansion” in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday.Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockThe frustration on the other side of the bargaining table was evinced by comments made on Thursday by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, who said during an interview on CNBC that workers were being “unrealistic.” Pouring gas on the fire was an article on the show business website Deadline that quoted an anonymous studio executive, who threatened to “bleed out” writers until they “start losing their apartments.” The studio alliance said the anonymous executive did not speak for its members.Though some executives see a brief stoppage as an opportunity to slash costs, a long-term shutdown has the potential to cause havoc in an entertainment industry already buffeted by the rise of streaming and struggles at the box office.“While media execs try to spin the dual strikes as a positive as production spending stops, investors are far more concerned that this will be a long strike that hurts the performance of already completed movies and TV series,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst at the research firm LightShed Partners.If the twin strikes drag on for just one or two months, companies will probably seize on the shutdown as an opportunity to save cash that they otherwise would have been spending on preproduction — the work done before shooting starts — and bidding on scripts, said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at SVB MoffettNathanson who focuses on the media and entertainment industries. Some of those costs will be incurred later anyway, he noted.They can also take a second look at the shows and films they have in the pipeline, pruning ones that are too costly, Mr. Nathanson said. He compared a brief strike to a halftime break for a losing team that needs to draw up a new strategy.The strike also threatens lucrative, long-term deals struck by media companies during the streaming boom, when they were willing to shell out astounding sums to lure creators like Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and J.J. Abrams. Some long-term deals have force majeure clauses, which take effect on the 60th or 90th day of a strike, allowing the studios to terminate their contracts without paying a penalty. Mr. Greenfield said those clauses could theoretically let studios get expensive deals off the books, but invoking them would jeopardize relationships with top talent in the future.If actors aren’t back to work by the fall, it will hurt network television, which needs them for new shows coveted by advertisers, Mr. Nathanson said. He added that traditional media companies based in the United States are at a disadvantage compared with Netflix, the dominant streaming company, which can take advantage of its production facilities around the world.“It’s like if the United Auto Workers go on strike, and all of a sudden you see more cars from Japan and Germany on the road,” Mr. Nathanson said.Publicly, studio executives are urging Hollywood to get back to work. Mr. Iger said last week in an interview from the annual Sun Valley conference for business titans that the strike would have a “very damaging” effect on the entertainment industry.There’s little indication, however, that a deal is close.The negotiating parties have all said they want to reach a fair agreement, placing the blame for the standstill on the other side. But they all acknowledge privately that if Hollywood doesn’t thaw out in time, everyone will get frostbite.”Making nothing as a cost-saving strategy is foolish with the fall TV season rapidly approaching and advertisers and consumers expecting new programming,” said Ellen Stutzman, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America. More

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      Striking Actors Join Writers on Picket Lines in LA and NYC

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      In Los Angeles and New York, actors and screenwriters braved the heat to admonish the major studios and demand a new deal.It was 10 a.m., adoring union members had already more or less mobbed their president, Fran Drescher, and the crowd was growing by the minute.Outside Netflix offices in Hollywood, a festive, buoyant mood had taken over the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. It was a workers’ strike, to be sure. But as smiling protesters eagerly joined in chants and high-fived their picket signs, it felt a little like a summer Friday street party. One with a few famous guests.“We’re told that we should just be so grateful to get to do what we love to do — but not being compensated, not being protected while they are profiting off of our work,” said Amanda Crew from HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” who walked the picket line with Dustin Milligan from “Schitt’s Creek.”“That’s the myth of the actor: You’re doing art so you should just be so grateful because you’re living your dream. Why? Do we do that to doctors? We bring so much joy to people by entertaining them,” Crew added.It was the first of what could be many days of marching for actors, who picketed at locations across the country. They chanted, “Actors and writers unite!” as they marched along a short block in Times Square where Paramount conducts business; they passed out bottles of cold water and cans of La Croix outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan; and they bounced their picket signs to the sounds of Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” as it blared from a speaker in Hollywood.A day earlier, the Hollywood actors’ union, known as SAG-AFTRA, approved a strike for the first time in 43 years, joining forces with writers, who walked out in May.“There’s a renewed sense of excitement and solidarity,” said Alicia Carroll, a strike captain for the Writers Guild of America. “Writers have been out here for upwards of 70 days. It’s been a while and it’s hot. People are tired. So this is a confidence boost that we’re not alone in the industry in terms of issues.”The actors Bill Irwin and Susan Sarandon picketed in New York on Friday.Andres Kudacki for The New York TimesThe actors and writers have been unable to agree to new contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios and streamers. Pay is a central issue, but the negotiations around compensation have been complicated by the emergence of streaming services and the rise of artificial intelligence.Actors, including Ms. Drescher, the president of their union, have cast the moment as an inflection point, arguing that the entire business model for the $134 billion American movie and television business has changed. They say their new contract needs to account for those changes with various guardrails and protections, including increased residual payments (a type of royalty) from streaming services. They are also worried about how A.I. could be used to replicate their work: scripts in the case of writers and digital replicas of their likenesses for actors.Hollywood companies have insisted that they worked in good faith to reach a reasonable deal at what has also been a difficult time for an industry that has been upended by streaming and is still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic.“The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry,” the studio alliance said in a statement after SAG-AFTRA announced the strike.On Friday, writers said they were heartened to be joined on the picket lines by actors, many of whom have been marching with them for months in the black-and-yellow T-shirts that have become something of a uniform. It is the first time since 1960 that actors and screenwriters have been on strike at the same time.WGA leaders have shared picket line advice: Bring plenty of sunscreen and set a timer to reapply, watch out for traffic. But some actors were already veterans.The actor Greg Germann being interviewed at Netflix’s office in Los Angeles on Friday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times“I have not been to a picket without SAG-AFTRA members there. Sometimes they have even outnumbered us here in the east,” said Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vice president of the Writers Guild of America, East. “They have been our stalwart supporters and comrades, and we intend to reciprocate.”“Suddenly,” she added, “the sleeping giant has awakened.”Indeed, some of the union’s most prominent members took to the streets Friday and drew notice as the afternoon wore on. Jason Sudeikis showed up at 30 Rock; Susan Sarandon went to the Flatiron neighborhood, where picketers targeted Warner Bros. Discovery; and Sean Astin marched outside the Netflix offices in Los Angeles.“Our careers have been turned into gig work,” Mr. Astin said over a chorus of frenetic honks of support from passing cars. “It’s not just that we’re not going to take it anymore — we actually can’t take it anymore.”An animated Ms. Drescher had arrived at the same location earlier in the day and was met with an exuberant crowd that wrapped itself around her.“This strike and this negotiation is going to impact everybody, and if we don’t take control of this situation from these greedy megalomaniacs, we are all going to be in threat of losing our livelihoods,” Ms. Drescher said.“I’m not really here for me as much as the 99.9 percent of the membership who are working people who are just trying to make a living to put food on the table, pay rent and get their kids off to school,” she added. “They are the ones that are being squeezed out of their livelihood, and it’s just pathetic.”Shara Ashley Zeiger, an actor, brought her 2-year-old, Lily, to the picket in front of NBC’s offices in New York. A sign protruded from her daughter’s stroller. Lily played with her food — and a tambourine.“The effects of this deal directly affect my daughter and my family,” Ms. Zeiger said.She added: “I had had a role on a project that was on a streamer, and their deal was they didn’t have to pay me residuals for two years. And it was in the middle of the pandemic.”Thousands of miles west in Los Angeles, Evan Shafran, an actor who had taken it upon himself to put together an hourslong playlist for the strike, wondered whether he might eventually need to apply for Medi-Cal, the state’s medical assistance program. He was able to string together enough work to pay for health insurance this year, but he could not be sure how things would pan out in the future.And last week, Mr. Shafran said, his car was stolen. But he took an Uber from his home in the San Fernando Valley to the Netflix offices anyway.“I spent $100 to come protest today even though I’m out of work,” he said. “I need to be out here.” More

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      Fran Drescher Takes Center Stage as the Actors’ Union Leader

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      Fran Drescher, who became a household name for her role on a 1990s sitcom, is now president of the union going on strike.The stage was different, and so was the tone. But the voice was unmistakable.Fran Drescher, the owner of a distinctly nasal, Queens-inflected accent, made her name in Hollywood for her starring role in the sitcom “The Nanny.” On Thursday, she appeared before dozens of cameras as the president of the actors’ union that voted unanimously earlier in the day to go on strike, delivering a fiery argument depicting the stakes of the decision.“The eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us,” Ms. Drescher said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor.”She shook her fists in indignation. “I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us!” she continued. “It is disgusting. Shame on them!”Ms. Drescher is the latest in a long line of familiar faces — Ronald Reagan, Patty Duke and Charlton Heston among them — to run SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents tens of thousands of screen actors. But it amounts to a surprising plot twist in her long career.As the Thursday news conference made clear, she is now a leading face of a resurgent labor movement nationally. How she handles it in the coming weeks, and possibly, months could help determine the fate of 160,000 actors.The actors’ strike, which will go into effect on Friday, marks a crisis point for Hollywood, which has already been rocked in recent years by the pandemic and sweeping technological shifts with the rise of streaming and the steady decline of cable television and box office returns. Hollywood writers have been on strike for months, and with actors now joining them — the first time since 1960 that both are on strike at the same time — the industry will essentially grind to a halt.Ms. Drescher, 65, has spent decades acting in Hollywood, both in television and film. Since her starring role on “The Nanny” in the 1990s, by far her most prominent role, she has appeared sporadically in television and feature films. She most recently starred in a short-lived sitcom for NBC called “Indebted,” which lasted 12 episodes before it was canceled in 2020.She has long expressed concerns about corporate greed, captioning photos with slogans like “STOP CAPITALIST GREED NOW.” It was enough for New York Magazine to put a headline on a 2017 blog post, “Your New Favorite Anti-Capitalist Icon Is Fran Drescher.”A few years later, in 2021, Ms. Drescher won election to the guild presidency in a deeply contested race versus the actor Matthew Modine. They represented different factions: Ms. Drescher for the establishment Unite for Strength Party, and Mr. Modine for an upstart group, Membership First.The race become so bitter that Mr. Modine accused Ms. Drescher of spreading falsehoods about him and reportedly said, “I’m ashamed of Fran Drescher, I’m disappointed. But she’ll be judged by the people in the world after she’s gone, or by whatever God she worships.”Unlike the screenwriters, who have gone on strike many times over the decades and historically been unified, actors have been known more for their intramural squabbling. Hollywood had been bracing for a writers strike since the beginning of the year — but few senior executives and producers were prepared for the actors to have the resolve to go through with it.When Ms. Drescher came into power she vowed to bring the union together and to bring an end to the “dysfunctional division in this union.”When the actors agreed to a strike authorization, it was with 97.9 percent of the vote — a stunning figure that even eclipsed the writers’ significant strike authorization. Last month, Membership First, the opposition party, endorsed Ms. Drescher’s re-election bid.Ms. Drescher on a picket line with members of the writers’ union in Los Angeles in May.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressStill, some of her public statements and actions in recent weeks have confounded many actors.In late June, days before the actors’ contract was set to expire, Ms. Drescher and the union’s lead negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, released a video that struck many viewers as surprisingly upbeat given the high stakes of the negotiations.“I just want to assure you that we are having extremely productive negotiations that are laser-focused on all the crucial issues that you told us are most important to you,” she said, wearing a military jacket. “We are standing strong, and we’re going to achieve a seminal deal!”Just days later, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence, signed a letter expressing concerns to union leadership that they were not taking into account their willingness to strike. “We hope that, on our behalf, you will meet that moment and not miss it,” the letter said.Ms. Drescher — curiously, given her position — added her signature to the letter.On Monday, days before the actors’ contract was set to expire, Ms. Drescher drew attention on another front: She was attending a couture Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Puglia, Italy, where she posed for photos with Kim Kardashian. To her 362 million Instagram followers, Ms. Kardashian said of Ms. Drescher: “To my fashion icon! Always on my mood board! I seriously love this woman!”On Monday, Kim Kardashian posted this photo with Ms. Drescher at the Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Puglia, Italy.Kim Kardashian, via InstagramThe backlash was quick and swift. The “General Hospital” actress Nancy Lee Grahn questioned if the photo was a joke. “I’m hoping this is not true. It can’t be. No one could be this stupid,” she wrote on Twitter.In a statement, a spokeswoman for the actors’ union said that Ms. Drescher was working as a “brand ambassador” for Dolce and Gabbana, and that the commitment was “fully known to the negotiating committee.” Mr. Crabtree-Ireland called criticism of Ms. Drescher’s appearance at the fashion show “outrageous” and “despicable.”Ms. Drescher addressed the issue at the news conference on Thursday. “It was absolute work,” she said, adding that she continued to communicate with negotiators from abroad. “I was in hair and makeup three hours a day, walking in heels on cobblestones. Doing things like that, which is work. Not fun.”While Mr. Crabtree-Ireland spoke at the news conference from a teleprompter, Ms. Drescher spoke off the cuff.“Wake up and smell the coffee,” she said of the studios. “We demand respect! You cannot exist without us!”“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment,” she continued, pointing her finger forcefully toward the camera banks. “We stand in solidarity in unprecedented unity. Our union, our sister unions, and the unions around the world, are standing by us.” More

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      The SAG-AFTRA Union Could Strike in Hollywood This Week

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      The News: Actors could join writers on the picket lines.The actors may soon be joining Hollywood screenwriters on the picket lines if their union, SAG-AFTRA, and the major studios fail to reach a deal by midnight on Wednesday. The two sides are haggling over the same issues that are front and center for the Writers Guild of America: higher wages, increased residual payments (a type of royalty) and significant guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence.Should the actors go on strike, it will be the first time in 63 years that both the actors and the writers are out at the same time over a contract dispute.Members of the Writers Guild of America picketing in Burbank, Calif.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhy It Matters: A second strike could shut Hollywood down completely.Hollywood is already 80 percent shut down since the writers went on strike on May 2. While some television shows and movies continued filming, the writers were surprisingly effective in shutting down shows in production. If the actors join them on the picket lines, productions will be closed completely, a reality that will have a significant effect on the local economies in Los Angeles and other filming locales like Atlanta and New York City. During the last writers’ strike 15 years ago, the Los Angeles economy lost an estimated $2.1 billion.The effects of a dual strike would also soon be coming to your television, with network shows going into reruns and a likely proliferation of reality television. Also, actors would no longer be able to promote new films, a reality that already exists to a large degree because the writers’ strike forced the late-night shows to go dark.Background: Streaming and A.I. bring change.Not since Ronald Reagan was the president of the Screen Actors Guild have the writers and actors been on strike at the same time. Back then, the actors were fighting over residuals paid for licensing films for television. Today, the actors want to ensure higher wages and better residuals in an entertainment landscape in which studios are struggling to turn a profit after investing billions of dollars in streaming. The actors are also concerned about how their likenesses could be used with the advent of artificial intelligence.Guild members authorized the strike in early June, with 97.9 percent of members voting yes. Then on June 24, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director of the guild, informed its membership that they “remained optimistic” about the talks. They added that the negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the trade association negotiating for the studios, had been “extremely productive.”A video prompted a group of more than 1,000 actors, including Ms. Drescher, to sign a letter that urged the union’s leadership to not settle for a lesser deal. “We are prepared to strike,” the letter said.On June 30, the union announced that it had extended its contract until Wednesday while the sides continued to talk.What’s Next: Could a deal still happen?After the parties negotiated all weekend, it remained unclear whether they were any closer to a resolution. Should they fail to make an agreement by midnight Pacific time on Wednesday, some 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members will be poised to join the 11,000 writers already on the picket line. More

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      David Byrne’s ‘Here Lies Love’ Reaches Deal With Broadway Musicians

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      After the musicians’ union raised objections to the show’s plans to use recorded music instead of a live band, the show agreed to use 12 musicians.“Here Lies Love,” the new David Byrne musical scheduled to start previews on Broadway next week, has bowed to objections by a labor union and agreed that 12 musicians will be part of the production.The producers of the musical, which is a dance-club-like show about Imelda Marcos, and the union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, announced the agreement late Friday afternoon.“On behalf of our entire cast, company and creative team, we have reached an agreement with Musicians Union Local 802, per the collective bargaining agreement,” the producers of the musical said in a statement. “We look forward to welcoming audiences to experience the revolutionary musical experience that is ‘Here Lies Love’ at the Broadway Theater beginning on Saturday, June 17.”The union issued a similarly terse, but slightly more detailed, statement, saying, “After negotiation, we have reached an agreement that will bring live music to ‘Here Lies Love’ with the inclusion of 12 musicians to the show. Broadway is a very special place with the best musicians and performances in the world, and we are glad this agreement honors that tradition.”Eric Koch, a communications consultant for the union, said three of the company’s actors would be counted among the 12 musicians.Asked about that, the producers responded: “‘Here Lies Love’ has always had three actor-musicians and a musical director in every production. The show’s integrity and the musical concept remains the same.”“Here Lies Love” is being led by a group of producers, including Patrick Catullo, Hal Luftig, Kevin Connor, Jose Antonio Vargas, Diana DiMenna and Clint Ramos. The show is one of the larger productions opening on Broadway this summer, with a big budget — it is being capitalized for up to $22 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission — and plans to redo the Broadway Theater so that the production can be staged in an immersive fashion, with much of the audience on a dance floor surrounded by the action.“Here Lies Love,” about Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, was written by Byrne and Fatboy Slim. It has been around for more than 15 years, and has been praised by critics and popular with audiences. It was presented as a song cycle at Carnegie Hall in 2007, and there were productions in 2012 at Mass MoCA, an art museum in the Berkshires; in 2013 at the Public Theater in New York; in 2014 at London’s National Theater and back at the Public for a second engagement; and in 2017 at the Seattle Repertory Theater.The production has in the past used recorded music, which the show said was meant to create a karaoke-like atmosphere, but as the Broadway opening neared, the labor union objected, saying its contract with the Broadway League requires the use of live musicians. The union had threatened to protest this weekend’s Tony Awards and the show’s upcoming previews; on Friday, the two sides settled the dispute. More

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      Predawn Picket Lines Help Writers Disrupt Studio Productions

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      Workers from other unions have shown solidarity with the strikers, catching entertainment companies off guard.At 5 a.m. on a recent weekday, a lone figure paced back and forth outside the main entrance to the Fox Studios lot in Los Angeles. Peter Chiarelli, a screenwriter, was walking the picket line.He held a sign reading “Thank You 399,” a message to the local branch of the Teamsters union, whose members he hoped would turn their trucks around instead of crossing his personal picket line to enter the lot, where Hulu was filming the series “Interior Chinatown.”“It’s passive-aggressive,” Mr. Chiarelli, who wrote the films “Crazy Rich Asians” and “The Proposal,” said of his sentiment — sincere if the Teamsters turned back and sarcastic if they entered.Since the Hollywood writers’ strike began on May 2, Mr. Chiarelli and others like him have been waking before dawn to try to disrupt productions whose scripts had already been finished.“We need to shut down the pipeline,” he said of the shows in production.The practice, which was not used to any real effect when the writers last went on strike in 2007, initially caught some studio executives off guard. And many of them — as well as plenty of people in the Writers Guild of America, the union that represents the writers — have been surprised that it has had some success.Mr. Chiarelli, taking a picture of a truck entering Fox Studios, hopes his presence will make Teamster drivers turn around.J. Emilio Flores for The New York TimesShowtime paused production on the sixth season of “The Chi” after writers gathered for two straight days outside the gates of the Chicago studio where it was filming. Apple TV’s “Loot” shut down after writers picketed a Los Angeles mansion where filming was taking place. The show’s star, Maya Rudolph, retreated to her trailer and was unwilling to return to set.Over 20 writers trekked from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita, Calif., to picket the FX drama “The Old Man,” starring Jeff Bridges. The overnight action kept Teamsters trucks inside the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch, Mr. Chiarelli said, and crews had difficulty working. The show soon suspended production.A Lionsgate comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen, with Aziz Ansari making his debut as a movie director, shut down last week after just two and a half days of filming in locations around Los Angeles after loud, shouting writers picketed all three of its sets.“While we won’t discuss the specifics of our strategy, we’re applying pressure on the companies by disrupting production wherever it takes place,” a Writers Guild of America spokesman said in a statement.Eric Haywood, a veteran writer who is on the union’s negotiating committee, put it more plainly. “If your movie or TV show is still shooting and we haven’t shut it down yet, sit tight,” he wrote on social media last weekend. “We’ll get around to you.”A representative for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, declined to comment.Both sides have privately said a much greater sense of solidarity among unions than during the last writers’ strike has made it harder for workers from other unions to cross picket lines. Productions are also more geographically widespread than they were 15 years ago. In addition to fortified Los Angeles soundstages, writers have picketed locations in the New Jersey suburbs, New York’s Westchester County and Chicago. And social media has provided a way to alert writers to quickly get to specific picket lines.Each day, the writers send out calls for “rapid response teams” when they learn about a production’s call time and location.“Breaking: they’re shooting on Sunday … we’re picketing on Sunday,” a writer posted on Twitter, asking people to get together immediately in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn to disrupt a production. “Please amplify.”“I think everybody is getting behind us because they see that if we all stick together, we can make some real achievements,” said Mike Royce (“One Day at a Time”), who has joined Mr. Chiarelli in his some of his predawn pickets.“The Old Man,” starring Jeff Bridges, is one of several productions that stopped filming because of picketing by writers.Prashant Gupta/FXThe writers have disrupted other events as well. Netflix canceled a major in-person presentation for advertisers in New York amid concerns about demonstrations. The streaming company also canceled an appearance by Ted Sarandos, one of its co-chief executives, who was to be honored at the prestigious PEN America Literary Gala. A Boston University commencement address by David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, was interrupted by boos and chants of “Pay your writers!” from demonstrators and students.While the makeshift picket lines have disrupted individual productions, it’s not clear that they’ve had much effect on the strike itself. Negotiations haven’t resumed since they broke down on May 1, and the industry is bracing for the possibility that the strike could last for months.The writers contend that their wages have stagnated even though the major Hollywood studios have invested billions of dollars in recent years to build out their streaming services. The guild has described the dispute in stark terms, saying the “survival of writing as a profession is at stake.”But production shutdowns are affecting not only the studios. Crews and other workers — like drivers, set designers, caterers — lose paychecks. And if the shutdowns accumulate and more people are unable to work, some wonder whether the writers will begin to erode the current good will from other workers.Lindsay Dougherty is the lead organizer of Local 399, the Teamsters’ Los Angeles division, which represents more than 6,000 movie workers, from the truck drivers the writers are trying to turn away to casting directors, location managers and animal trainers. A second-generation Teamster, Ms. Dougherty is one of the union’s few female leaders. Her copious tattoos, including one of the former Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, and her frequently profane speech have made her a bit of a celebrity to the writers during the strike.And she said the solidarity with the writers remained strong.“I think collectively, we’re all on the same page in that streaming has dramatically changed the industry,” Ms. Dougherty said in an interview. “And these tech companies that we’re bargaining with, during the last writers’ strike — Amazon, Apple, Netflix — they weren’t even part of the conversation.”Asked if the Teamsters were tipping off the writers about the timing and location of productions, she demurred.“The Writers Guild is getting tips from all sorts of different places — whether it’s members that are working on the crew, or from film permits, they obviously have social media groups and emails set up to send tips and information,” she said.In the meantime, Mr. Chiarelli keeps pacing outside Fox Studios each day, hoping he can turn some trucks around. Some days he gets results. On a recent morning he was joined by several other writers, and five trucks turned away, he said. During an overnight picket at Fox, a trailer carrying fake police cars destined for the shoot turned tail at 2 a.m.Other days, the picket line is much more sparse, especially if a tip takes a group to a different location.He and Mr. Royce talked fondly about their second day out in the darkness. It was pouring rain when two large trucks pulled into the turn lane, blinkers on, ready to enter the lot. Then they saw the writers. The trucks pulled to the side of the road, waited about 10 minutes, then turned around.They “blew past the entrance, honked their horns and waved at us,” Mr. Royce said. “It was thrilling.”Added Mr. Chiarelli, “I’ve been chasing that high ever since.” More

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      in Television

      How America’s Playwrights Saved the Tony Awards

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      The screenwriters’ strike threatened next month’s broadcast, a key marketing moment for the fragile theater industry. That’s when leading dramatists sprang into action.Martyna Majok, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, was revising her musical adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” after a long day in a developmental workshop when she heard the news: The union representing striking screenwriters was not going to grant a waiver for the Tony Awards, imperiling this year’s telecast.So at three in the morning, she set aside her script to join a group of playwrights frantically writing emails and making phone calls to leaders of the Writers Guild of America, urging the union not to make the pandemic-hobbled theater industry collateral damage in a Hollywood dispute. “I had to try,” she said.Surprising even themselves, the army of artists succeeded. The screenwriters’ union agreed to a compromise: it said it would not picket the ceremony as long as the show does not rely on a written script.“Theater is having a very hard time coming back from the devastating effects of the pandemic — shows are struggling and nonprofit theaters are struggling terribly,” said Tony Kushner, who is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest living playwrights, and is, like many of his peers, also a screenwriter. “Ethically and morally, this felt like a recognition of the particular vulnerability of the theater industry. It’s the right thing to do, and costs us nothing.”Kushner, who is best known for the Pulitzer-winning play “Angels in America,” is a fiery supporter of the strike who freely denounces the “unconscionable greed” of studio bosses and who showed up on a picket line as soon as it began. But he spent a weekend calling and writing union leaders in both New York and Los Angeles, urging them to find a way to let the Tony Awards happen, arguing that canceling them would have been far more damaging to theater artists than to CBS, which broadcasts the event.He was among a number of acclaimed dramatists — including David Henry Hwang and Jeremy O. Harris — who spent a weekend phoning and emailing union leaders. At least a half-dozen Pulitzer winners joined the cause, including Lynn Nottage (“Sweat” and “Ruined”), Quiara Alegría Hudes (“Water by the Spoonful”), David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole”), Donald Margulies (“Dinner with Friends”) and Majok (“Cost of Living”).“Cost of Living,” by Martyna Majok, is nominated for best new play. Majok joined other playwrights lobbying the writers’ union to allow the Tonys telecast to proceed. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMajok, who is a first-time Tony nominee herself this year for “Cost of Living,” said, “I approached them with respect and gratitude for all they have done for me,” she said, “but this decision was impacting so many of my colleagues and friends deeply, in an industry that is still financially struggling.”Writers are never the main attraction at the Tony Awards. The annual ceremony centers musical theater, hoping that razzle-dazzle song and dance numbers will inspire viewers to get up off their couches and come visit Broadway. The telecast often struggles with how to represent serious drama.But playwrights say they treasure the Tonys, because the ceremony introduces new audiences to theater. “In one way or another, it’s all connected,” Kushner said.And for once playwrights actually had power, because in recent years, as the number of scripted series on television and streaming services has exploded, many of them have also taken jobs working in film and television, which pays much better than the theater industry. Many of the playwrights concerned about the Tony Awards were also members of the Writers Guild — some quite successful, like Kushner, who wrote the scripts for Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” “Lincoln,” “West Side Story” and “The Fabelmans,” and Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote “The Waverly Gallery” for the stage and “Manchester by the Sea” for the screen.“Most playwrights are W.G.A. members, because they have to make a living and get health insurance,” said Ralph Sevush, the executive director of business affairs for the Dramatists Guild of America, which is a trade association of theater writers. “And yes, there was a great deal of lobbying of the W.G.A. by many of them to find a way to get the broadcast on.”The screenwriters’ union was torn over whether to assist the Tony Awards, with its eastern branch, filled with playwright members more sympathetic than the affiliated western branch, which is more Hollywood-oriented. It did not go unnoticed that many theatrical workers have been vocally supporting the writers’ strike, including Kate Shindle, the president of the Actors’ Equity Association, who has brought members of her union to the picket lines and who spoke with the heads of both branches of the screenwriters’ guild.“There was no master strategy involved — we were just standing up for the writers,” Shindle said. “But I’m happy with the way that it seems like a decision came about: writers talking to and debating with each other, which feels like the right thing.”The Tonys seem likely to be a rare exception. In the days following the greenlighting of the theatrical awards, this year’s Peabody Awards, which honor storytelling in electronic media, were canceled, and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which honor work on television, were postponed.Asked about the decision, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a vice president of the screenwriters’ guild’s eastern branch, offered an emailed statement that said, in part, “we recognize the devastating impact the absence of a Tonys would have on our New York theater community. Here in W.G.A. East, we have many, many members who are playwrights, and we are deeply intertwined with our sister unions whose members work in the theater.”Playwrights were not actually the first choice of Broadway boosters strategizing about how to save the Tonys — at first, industry leaders thought they might look to prominent politicians and famous actors to make their case. But they quickly realized that playwrights, because of their ties to the W.G.A., were better positioned to influence the discussion. Harris, who wrote “Slave Play,” and Gina Gionfriddo (“Rapture, Blister, Burn”) rallied writers to the cause, along with the agent Joe Machota, who is the head of theater for Creative Artists Agency.This year, they argued, would be an especially unfortunate time to downgrade the Tony Awards.Ariana DeBose, who hosted last year’s Tony Awards, is expected back this year, but it’s unclear what a ceremony without a script will look like.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBroadway attendance and overall grosses remain well below prepandemic levels, and new musicals are struggling — four of the five nominated shows are losing money most weeks.Unlike the Oscars, which generally take place after the theatrical runs of nominated films, the Tonys take place early in the run of most nominated musicals, so they can translate into ticket sales. The Tonys matter for plays in a different way: nominations and wins have an enormous impact on how often those works are staged, read and taught.“People that don’t work in playwriting don’t always have a meaningful understanding of how important Broadway is to Off Broadway and to regional theaters — they’re really a beacon for the community at large, and even if you don’t care about the glitz and the glamour, if they start to lose money, it has impacts all over the country,” said Tanya Barfield, a playwright and television writer who is the co-director of the playwriting program at Juilliard.After she heard her union had denied a waiver for the Tony Awards, a “heartbroken” Barfield joined a picket line with a homemade “I ❤️ the Tony Awards” sticker on her WGA sign. And she wrote union leaders. “We wanted to make sure theaters did not become a casualty,” she said.Another concern: this year’s Tony Awards feature an unusually diverse group of nominees, reflecting the increasingly diverse array of shows staged on Broadway since 2020. Five of this year’s nominated new plays and play revivals are by Black writers; four of the five nominees for best actor in a play are Black; the best score category for the first time includes an Asian American woman; and the acting nominees include two gender nonconforming performers as well as a woman who is a double amputee.“We need to showcase what we’ve been seeing with the diverse talent and rich storytelling of the past few years,” Majok said.The Tonys will be different this year. The event will take place, as planned, at the United Palace in Upper Manhattan, with a live audience, live performances of musical numbers from nominated shows, and the presentation and acceptance of awards. But there will be no scripted material (a draft script had been submitted, but will not be used) and no scripted opening number (Lin-Manuel Miranda had been planning to write one). Ariana DeBose, the Oscar-winning actress who had been named its host for the second year in a row, is still expected to take part, but it is not clear what role she will play.One new element that is expected at this year’s ceremony? Shout-outs to the striking screenwriters. Hwang, a W.G.A. member who called and emailed union leaders asking them to rethink their position on the Tonys, said, “I anticipate that there will be a lot of speeches that express our appreciation and support for the guild on Tony night.” More

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      in Theater

      Tony Awards Broadcast Can Proceed After Striking Writers’ Union Agrees

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      The Tony Awards, a key marketing opportunity for Broadway, can go ahead in an altered form after the striking screenwriters’ union said it would not picket this year’s broadcast.This year’s Tony Awards ceremony, which had been in doubt ever since Hollywood’s screenwriters went on strike earlier this month, will proceed as scheduled in an altered form after the writers’ union said Monday night that it would not picket the show.“As they have stood by us, we stand with our fellow workers on Broadway who are impacted by our strike,” the Writers Guild of America, which represents screenwriters, said in a statement late Monday.A disruption could have been damaging to Broadway, which sees the televised ceremony as a key marketing opportunity, particularly now, when audiences have yet to return to prepandemic levels. Several nominated shows have been operating at a loss, holding on in the hopes that a Tony win — or even exposure on the broadcast — could boost sales.The union made it clear that the broadcast, which is scheduled to air on CBS on June 11, would be different from past ceremonies.“Tony Awards Productions (a joint venture of the Broadway League and the American Theater Wing) has communicated with us that they are altering this year’s show to conform with specific requests from the W.G.A., and therefore the W.G.A. will not be picketing the show,” the union said in a statement. “Responsibility for having to make changes to the format of the 2023 Tony Awards rests squarely on the shoulders of Paramount/CBS and their allies. They continue to refuse to negotiate a fair contract for the writers represented by the W.G.A.”The union did not detail what those differences would be, and the Tony Awards administrators did not have any immediate comment. But a person familiar with the plan, who was granted anonymity to speak about conditions that are not yet public, said the revised broadcast would include the presentation of key awards and live performances of songs from Broadway shows, but that it would not feature any scripted material by screenwriters in its opening number or comedic patter.The Tony Awards agreed that they would not use any part of a draft script that had been written before the screenwriters’ strike began, said the person.It was not immediately clear what role, if any, Ariana DeBose will play in the unscripted show. The Oscar-winning, Broadway-loving actress had hosted the awards ceremony last year, and had agreed to host again this year.It became clear immediately after the screenwriters went on strike that the labor disruption could affect the Tony Awards, because the awards ceremony is televised (by CBS) and live-streamed (by Paramount+) and ordinarily features a script written by screenwriters.Broadway is a heavily unionized industry, and unionized theater workers like actors and musicians were not going to participate in an awards ceremony being protested by another labor union. Tony Awards administrators, aware of those concerns, asked the W.G.A. for a waiver that would have allowed its writers to work on the show, given the dire straits of the theater industry; on Friday, the W.G.A. denied that request, and on Monday night it reiterated that denial, saying that the guild “will not negotiate an interim agreement or a waiver for the Tony Awards.”But Tony Awards administrators did not give up, and asked the guild if, even without a waiver to allow screenwriters to work on the show, it would allow the broadcast to proceed without writers as long as it meets certain conditions.Prominent theater artists who work on Broadway and are allied with the writers guild also spoke up on behalf of the Tonys, arguing that forcing the show off the air would be devastating to the art form and to the many arts workers it employs. The combination of the lobbying efforts and the new conditions appears to have prompted the guild to say Monday night that it would not picket the broadcast.The striking screenwriters have argued that their wages have stagnated and working conditions have deteriorated despite the fact that television production has exploded over the last decade. Negotiations between the major Hollywood studios — represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — and the W.G.A. broke down three weeks ago. Roughly 11,500 writers went on strike beginning on May 2.Over the last two weeks, the writers have assembled picket lines outside the major studios in Los Angeles and production sound stages in New York. But the writers have also gone farther afield, with some taking to picket outside productions in more far-flung locales like Maplewood, N.J., Chicago and Philadelphia.The threat of demonstrations forced Netflix to cancel a major in-person showcase for advertisers, which was scheduled for Wednesday, and to turn it into a virtual format instead. The company also canceled an appearance for Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive, at the PEN America Literary Gala on Thursday.CBS has been broadcasting the Tonys since the 1970s, making it one of the longest continuous relationships between a single broadcaster and an awards show. CBS has a deal to broadcast the show through 2026. Because of the Tonys’s relatively low viewership, it has long been more of a prestige play for the network than a significant profit maker. More