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      Hollywood Turns to Actors’ Strike After Writers Agree to Deal

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      The studios and the actors’ union haven’t spoken for more than two months, but a deal is needed before the entertainment industry can fully return.Hollywood’s actors are back in the spotlight.With screenwriters reaching a tentative agreement with the major entertainment studios on a new labor deal on Sunday night, one big obstacle stands in the way of the film and TV industry roaring back to life: ending the strike with tens of thousands of actors.The two sides have not spoken in more than two months, and no talks are scheduled.Leaders of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, have indicated a willingness to negotiate, but the studios made a strategic decision in early August to focus on reaching a détente with the writers first. A big reason was the rhetoric of Fran Drescher, the president of the actors’ union, who made one fiery speech after another following the strike, including one in which she denounced studio executives as “land barons of a medieval time.”“Eventually, the people break down the gates of Versailles,” Ms. Drescher said after the actors’ strike was called in July. “And then it’s over. We’re at that moment right now.”Ms. Drescher has been less vocal in recent weeks, however. Only a resolution with the actors will determine when tens of thousands of workers — including camera operators, makeup artists, prop makers, set dressers, lighting technicians, hairstylists, cinematographers — return to work.The actors’ union offered congratulations to the Writers Guild of America, which represents more than 11,000 screenwriters, in a statement on Sunday night, adding that it was eager to review the tentative agreement with the studios. Still, it said it remained “committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”With a tentative deal in hand, the Writers Guild suspended picketing. But protests by actors will begin again on Tuesday, after a break for Yom Kippur on Monday. “We need everyone on the line Tuesday-Friday,” the actress Frances Fisher, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, said on Sunday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Show us your #Solidarity!”Dozens of Writers Guild members vowed to support the actors. “I know there’s a huge sign of relief reverberating through the town right now, but it’s not over for any of us until SAG-AFTRA gets their deal,” Amy Berg, a Writers Guild strike captain, wrote on X.Their support will go only so far, however. Writers Guild negotiators were unsuccessful in receiving the contractual right to honor other unions’ picket lines; writers will be required to return to work, perhaps before a ratification vote is final.It has been 74 days since the actors’ union and representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, have talked. That will probably soon change given the high stakes of salvaging the 2024 theatrical box office, which will be in considerable jeopardy should Hollywood not be able to restart production within the next month. The TV production window for the remainder of the year is also closing, given the coming holidays.Restarting talks with the actors’ union is a bit more complicated than it sounds. For a start, SAG-AFTRA officials will need time to scrutinize the deal points achieved by the Writers Guild; those wins and compromises will inform a new bargaining strategy for the actors. Also, talks between studios and writers restarted only after leaders on both sides spent time back-channeling about the thorniest issues and seeing if there was a willingness to negotiate. Studios are likely to try the same strategy with the actors.The soonest that negotiations between actors and the studios could restart is next week, according to a person directly involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the strike.Neither SAG-AFTRA nor the studio alliance commented on Monday.“There’s tremendous pressure on both sides to get this done,” said Bobby Schwartz, a partner at Quinn Emanuel and a longtime entertainment lawyer who has represented several of the major studios. “The deal that the Writers Guild and the studios struck economically could have been worked out in May, June. It didn’t need to go this long. I think the membership of SAG-AFTRA is going to say we’ve been out of work for months, we want to go back to work, we don’t want to be the ones that are keeping everybody else on the sidelines.”The dual strikes by the writers and the actors — the first time that has happened since 1960 — have effectively shut down TV and film production for months. The fallout has been significant, both inside and outside the industry. California’s economy alone has lost more than $5 billion, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.Warner Bros. Discovery said this month that the impact from the labor disputes would reduce its adjusted earnings for the year by $300 million to $500 million. Additionally, share prices for other major media companies like Disney and Paramount have taken a hit in recent months.The industry took a meaningful step toward stabilization on Sunday night, though, with the tentative deal between the writers and studios all but ending a 146-day strike.The deal still needs to be approved by union leadership and ratified by rank-and-file screenwriters. “I’m waiting impatiently to see what the exact language is around A.I.,” said Joseph Vinciguerra, a Writers Guild member and a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.The approval vote by union leadership is expected on Tuesday.Though the fine print of the terms has not been released, the agreement has much of what the writers had demanded, including increases in compensation for streaming content, concessions from studios on minimum staffing for television shows and guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not encroach on writers’ credits and compensation.“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee said in an email to members.On Monday, President Biden released a statement applauding the deal, saying it would “allow writers to return to the important work of telling the stories of our nation, our world — and of all of us.”The prospective writers’ deal should provide a blueprint for the actors, since many of their demands are similar.Union leaders for the actors said their compensation levels, as well as their working conditions, were worsened by the rise of streaming. Like screenwriters, actors have been terrified by the prospects of artificial intelligence. They are worried that it could be used to create digital replicas of their likenesses — or that performances could be digitally altered — without payment or approval, and are seeking significant guardrails to protect against that.The actors, however, have had several demands that the studios balked at, including a revenue-sharing agreement for successful streaming shows. The actors have also asked for significant wage increases, including an 11 percent raise in the first year of a new contract. The studios last proposed a 5 percent raise.Though the entertainment industry had been bracing for a work stoppage by the writers going back to the beginning of the year, the actors’ uncharacteristic resolve this past summer caught studio executives off guard.The actors last went on strike in 1980. By comparison, the writers previously walked out in 2007 for 100 days.The first worrying sign came in June when more than 60,000 actors authorized a walkout with 98 percent of the vote — a margin that even eclipsed the writers’ strike authorization. Then, as bargaining began, the studios saw the actors’ list of demands. Union leaders handed over a list that totaled 48 pages, nearly triple the size of their asks during the last contract negotiations in 2020.While bargaining was going on, more than 1,000 actors, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Ben Stiller, signed a letter to guild leadership saying that “we are prepared to strike.” The union called for a strike a little more than two weeks later. More

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      Warner Bros. Suspends Deals With Top Show Creators

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      The move, which affected star writers like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams, is an escalation of the standoff between Hollywood studios and the Writers Guild of America.When television and movie writers went on strike in May, studios quickly suspended certain first-look deals — mostly those for lesser-established writers. Star show creators like Mindy Kaling and J.J. Abrams were kept on the payroll. Worried about keeping them happy, even during a walkout, studios left their multimillion-dollar deals alone, shielding them from the pain of the strike.No more.In an escalation of the standoff between studios and the Writers Guild of America — it has entered its fifth month, with no end in sight — Warner Bros. moved late Wednesday to suspend deals with the 1 percent of television writers. That includes Ms. Kaling, a creator of the Max series “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” and Mr. Abrams, whose recent television efforts include “Duster,” a coming thriller set in the 1970s, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private suspension notices.Warner Bros. also suspended deals with Greg Berlanti (“Superman & Lois”) and Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso”), among others, the people said.A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. declined to comment. Representatives for the writers either declined to comment or did not return calls. A spokesman for the Writers Guild of America had no immediate response.Top writers have contractual protections that will ultimately enable them to receive all the compensation promised in their original deals. Warner Bros. is doing what is known as “suspend and extend,” according to the people briefed on the matter, meaning that the studio will halt payments for the duration of the strike — and then, when work resumes, extend the contracts by the amount of time they were suspended.The suspension of the A-lister deals suggests that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, expects the strike to continue into the fall. (A representative for the studio alliance declined to comment.) Studio executives had signaled that Labor Day was an inflection point; the industry’s sitting idle beyond that date would have a severe impact on the 2024 release calendar, particularly for movies.J.J. Abrams’s deal was also suspended. The move can exert more pressure on the striking writers guild.Jerod Harris/Getty ImagesWarner Bros. Discovery said in a securities filing on Tuesday that the Hollywood strikes — tens of thousands of actors joined writers on picket lines in mid-July, the first time both unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960 — would negatively affect its 2023 earnings by up to $500 million.“We are trying to get this resolved in a way that’s really fair and everyone feels fairly treated,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, said at a Goldman Sachs event on Wednesday. “Having said that, in our guidance, we said that this would be resolved by September. And here we are in September. This is really a very unusual event — the last time it happened was 1960.”Suspending the deals of prominent writers is one way for the studios to try to put pressure on the Writers Guild. During the last writers’ strike, in 2007, a small group of showrunners agitated for union leadership to settle with the studios as the stalemate wore on. That strike lasted 100 days; the current strike is now at the 128-day mark.Studio officials and Writers Guild negotiators have not met formally since Aug. 23, when talks broke off for the second time and the companies publicly released their latest offer in an appeal to rank-and-file members. Studios were hoping the offer would look good enough for members to pressure their leaders to make a deal.But the move seemed to have the opposite effect, instilling the 11,500-member Writers Guild with renewed resolve to keep fighting. “The companies’ counteroffer is neither nothing, nor nearly enough,” guild leaders said in a note to members on Aug. 24. “We will continue to advocate for proposals that fully address our issues rather than accept half measures.”The studios defended their proposal as offering the highest wage increase to writers in more than three decades. The studios also said that they had offered “landmark protections” against artificial intelligence, and that they vowed to offer some degree of streaming viewership data to the guild, information that had previously been held under lock and key.Both the writers and the actors have called this moment “existential,” arguing that the streaming era has deteriorated their working conditions as well as their compensation levels.Nicole Sperling More

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      in Television

      To Keep TV Shows Afloat, Some Networks Are Cutting Actors’ Pay

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      In a shrinking business, actors on some shows are being guaranteed less money, an issue that’s helping to fuel the Hollywood strike.Starring on the CBS sitcom “Bob Hearts Abishola” has been good for Bayo Akinfemi. Being a regular cast member for four years has given him financial security and made him a star in his native Nigeria, where the show is wildly popular. It even helped him branch out from acting, when producers gave him the opportunity to direct an episode.But Mr. Akinfemi and 10 of his castmates were told this year that the only way the half-hour show was going to get a fifth season was if budgets were cut. How the actors were paid was going to change.No longer would they be guaranteed pay for all 22 episodes of a season. Instead, Mr. Akinfemi and his castmates would be reclassified as recurring cast members. They would be paid the same amount per episode, but unlike regular cast members, they would be paid only for the episodes in which they appeared and would be guaranteed only five of those in a truncated 13-episode season, once the actors’ strike was over and performers returned to work. (Only Billy Gardell, who plays the white middle-aged businessman Bob, and Folake Olowofoyeku, who plays Abishola, the Nigerian nurse he loves, will remain series regulars.)“It was a bit surprising, for all of 10 seconds,” Mr. Akinfemi said in an interview before SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, went on strike. “We are disappointed, but we also understand at the end of the day it’s a business.”For decades, actors playing supporting characters on successful network television shows have been able to renegotiate their contracts in later seasons and reap financial windfalls. But this is a new era for network TV.It’s a business that has been struggling with depressed ratings, decreased advertising revenue and fierce competition from streaming services, resulting in millions of viewers cutting their cable subscriptions. And one way networks and production companies are trying to deal with the changing economics is to ask the casts of some long-running shows to take pay cuts.“Bob Hearts Abishola” was not the only show facing budget cuts, Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, said. David Livingston/Getty Images“The glory days of linear television are sadly behind us,” said Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, the studio behind “Bob Hearts Abishola.”This new reality in network television is one of the reasons behind the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes. Those on strike say the economics of the streaming era have effectively reduced their pay and cut into money they get from residuals, a type of royalty. The studios say they aren’t making the kind of money they used to, meaning that they’re having to shave costs wherever they can.The sides are at a standstill. The writers haven’t spoken to the studios since going out on strike on May 2, and the actors haven’t since walking out on July 14. No negotiations are scheduled.“Blue Bloods,” a CBS drama starring Tom Selleck, is returning for its 14th season only because the entire cast agreed to a 25 percent pay cut when the strike is over. On the CW network, “Superman & Lois,” which is entering its fourth season, and “All American: Homecoming,” which is hanging on for a third season, saw their budgets cut and cast members reduced to day players or eliminated.Not even the juggernaut represented by Dick Wolf’s lineup of shows on NBC is immune. A number of the actors on shows like “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Fire” are being guaranteed appearances in fewer episodes for the coming season, according to two people familiar with the productions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.“This is something that’s happening across the board,” Ms. Dungey said, adding that CBS wanted to renew “Bob Hearts Abishola” only if Warner Bros. was able to produce it for the network at a reduced cost. “There are a number of different shows, both on CBS and elsewhere, where the same kinds of considerations are coming into play.”CBS and NBC declined to comment.Word of the salary adjustments for “Bob Hearts Abishola” came out in late April, just days before SAG-AFTRA authorized its strike with a 97.9 percent vote in favor.“This is the beginning of the end for working-class actors,” the actress Ever Carradine, who has been in shows like “Commander in Chief” on ABC and Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote on Twitter at the time. “I have never worked harder in my career to make less money, and I am not alone.”Today, first-time series regulars often earn anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 an episode, depending on the budget of the show, the size of the role, and the studio or network that’s footing the bill. Commissions for agents and management are subtracted from those sums.To some, the recent reductions are an inevitable correction from the era of peak television, when studios were eager to lure talent with lucrative contracts. Some executives argue that paring back salaries will ultimately allow more shows to be made, at a more reasonable price.Network shows do not draw anywhere close to the viewer numbers they did when 20 million people were watching “Seinfeld” and “Friends” every week in the 1990s.At the end of its fourth season, “Bob Hearts Abishola” was averaging 6.9 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen’s Live +35 metric, which measures the first 35 days of viewing on both linear and digital platforms. Hits had bigger audiences, like CBS’s “Ghosts,” which averaged 11 million viewers over 35 days, and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which averaged 9.1 million.But the rise of streaming has cannibalized network television on a scale the networks weren’t prepared for, and not even scaling back on scripted offerings has been enough to stem the bleeding. “Bob Hearts Abishola” is one of four prime-time scripted comedies left on CBS.“It is hard now to get shows to Seasons 5 and beyond, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen,” Ms. Dungey said. “It just is less likely to happen as often as it did in the past.”Yet the new reality means actors must decide whether to remain on a show at a reduced rate but with some job security or leave to see if they can find other jobs.The management team for Kelly Jenrette, an actress on the CW’s “All American: Homecoming,” told the trade publication Deadline that she had chosen to become a recurring character rather than “opt for a return as a series regular on reduced episodic guarantees.”Ms. Jenrette declined to be interviewed because, she said, she was told that doing so would violate the actors’ union’s ban on promoting projects associated with struck companies. The CW declined to comment.For some, the pride they take in their shows is also an enticement to stay. On “Bob Hearts Abishola,” Mr. Akinfemi plays Goodwin, an employee of Bob’s compression sock company who was on his way to becoming an economics professor in Nigeria before he left the country.Fans have stopped him in the Nigerian airport, in the streets of Toronto, even at the CVS near his home in Los Angeles to marvel that whole scenes of the show are spoken in Mr. Akinfemi’s native Yoruba tongue. (He also serves as the language consultant for the sitcom.)“The idea that there could be a show like this that really showcases Nigerian culture, it’s just unfathomable,” Mr. Akinfemi said. “That we are really representing Nigerian culture as accurately as possible and in a positive light, on American television, is mind-blowing to a lot of Nigerians and Africans.”He and the 10 other cast members affected by the pay changes on “Bob Hearts Abishola” all chose to stay.“These actors are attached to good, important, groundbreaking work,” said Tash Moseley, Mr. Akinfemi’s manager. “I think they knew that the actors would come back and do it no matter what.” More

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      in Movies

      In Hollywood Strike, Actors and Studios Are ‘Far Apart’ on Key Issues

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      The actors’ union and the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios traded statements underscoring how much work needs to be done to reach an agreement.As tens of thousands of actors go into their fifth day of a strike versus the Hollywood studios, the two sides have shown no signs of returning to the bargaining table — and are even exchanging barbed messages that underscore how far apart they are.Late Monday, leadership of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, sent members a 12-page memo laying out its demands and the studios’ counterproposals. They “remain far apart on the most critical issues that affect the very survival of our profession,” the note said.“We marched ahead because they intentionally dragged their feet,” it continued.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios, answered with a note to the news media arguing that the message from the union “deliberately distorts” the offers it had made.“A strike is not the outcome we wanted,” the alliance said. “For SAG-AFTRA to assert that we have not been responsive to the needs of its membership is disingenuous at best.”Thousands of Hollywood actors went on strike on Friday after failing to reach a new contract with the major studios, including old-line companies like Paramount, Universal and Disney and tech giants like Netflix, Amazon and Apple.The actors joined 11,500 screenwriters who went on strike 78 days ago, the first time both unions had walked out at the same time since 1960. The writers have not returned to the bargaining table with the studios since their negotiations collapsed in early May.SAG-AFTRA’s note said the two sides remained far apart on several key issues, including compensation, guardrails against artificial intelligence, and health care and pension costs.The union’s leadership said it had asked for 11 percent wage increases in the first year of a new contract; the studios came back with an offer of 5 percent, the union said.When it comes to artificial intelligence, the union’s leaders said they had argued for a number of provisions to protect them “when a ‘digital replica’ is made or our performance is changed using A.I.”They said the studio alliance “failed to address many vital concerns, leaving principal performers and background actors vulnerable to having most of their work replaced by digital replicas.”The studios said that the union’s note to its members “fails to include the proposals offered verbally” during negotiations, and that its overall package was worth more than $1 billion in wage increases, improvements on residuals (a type of royalty) and health care contributions.Regarding artificial intelligence, the studios said they had offered a “groundbreaking proposal, which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.”Union leadership sent out a chart laying out each proposal and the studios’ response. Over more than two dozen proposals, the studio response amounted to one word, according to the union: “Rejected.”“So who’s making the T-Shirt that says ‘Rejected’?” the actress Senta Moses posted on Twitter.“This is why we’re on strike,” the union note said. “The A.M.P.T.P. thinks we will relent, but the will of our membership has never been stronger. We have the resolve and unity needed to defend our rights.” More

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      Hollywood Directors Reach Deal With Studios as Writers’ Strike Continues

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      The tentative agreement includes improvements in wages and guardrails around artificial intelligence.The union that represents thousands of movie and television directors reached a tentative agreement with the Hollywood studios on a three-year contract early Sunday morning, a deal that ensures labor peace with one major guild as the writers’ strike enters its sixth week.The Directors Guild of America announced in a statement overnight that it had made “unprecedented gains,” including improvements in wages and streaming residuals (a type of royalty), as well as guardrails around artificial intelligence.“We have concluded a truly historic deal,” Jon Avnet, the chair of the D.G.A.’s negotiating committee, said in the statement. “It provides significant improvements for every director, assistant director, unit production manager, associate director and stage manager in our guild.”The deal prevents the doomsday Hollywood scenario of three major unions striking simultaneously. On Wednesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, will begin negotiations for a new contract with SAG-AFTRA, the guild that represents actors; their current agreement expires on June 30. SAG-AFTRA is in the process of collecting a strike authorization vote.The entertainment industry will be looking closely at what the directors’ deal — and the actors’ negotiations — will mean for the Writers Guild of America, the union that represents the writers. More than 11,000 writers went on strike in early May, bringing many Hollywood productions to a halt.Over the last month, the writers have enjoyed a wave of solidarity from other unions that W.G.A. leaders have said they have not seen in generations. Whether a directors’ deal — or a possible actors’ deal later this month — undercuts that solidarity is now an open question.W.G.A. leaders had been signaling to writers late last week that a deal with the directors could be in the offing, a strategy that it said was part of the studio “playbook” to “divide and conquer.” The writers and the studios left the bargaining table on May 1 very far apart on the major issues, and have not resumed negotiations.“They pretended they couldn’t negotiate with the W.G.A. in May because of negotiations with the D.G.A.,” the W.G.A. negotiating committee told writers in an email on Thursday. “That’s a lie. It’s a choice they made in hope of breathing life into the divide and conquer strategy. The essence of the strategy is to make deals with some unions and tell the rest that’s all there is. It’s gaslighting, and it only works if unions are divided.“Our position is clear: To resolve the strike, the companies will have to negotiate with the W.G.A. on our full agenda,” the email continued.Representatives for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers declined to comment.The writers and the directors shared some priorities, including wages, streaming residuals and concerns about artificial intelligence. W.G.A. leaders had said that the studios had offered little more than “annual meetings to discuss” artificial intelligence, and that they refused to bargain over guardrails. The D.G.A. said Sunday that it received a “groundbreaking agreement confirming that A.I. is not a person and that generative A.I. cannot replace the duties performed by members.”Some of the writers’ demands, however, are more complex than those of the directors. W.G.A. leaders have described the dispute in urgent terms, calling this moment “existential,” and saying that the studios “are seemingly intent on continuing their efforts to destroy the profession of writing.”Despite the explosion of television production over the last decade, writers have said that their wages have stagnated, and their working conditions have deteriorated. In addition to improvements on compensation, the writers are seeking greater job security, as well as staffing minimums in writers’ rooms.The W.G.A. has vowed to fight on. The writers, who last went on strike 15 years ago for 100 days, have historically been united.“We are girded by an alliance with our sister guilds and unions,” Chris Keyser, a chair of the W.G.A. bargaining committee, said in a video message to writers last week. “They give us strength. But we are strong enough. We have always been strong enough to get the deal we need using writer power alone.” More

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      in Theater

      New Broadway Labor Agreement Includes Pandemic-Prompted Changes

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      The deal, ratified by members of Actors’ Equity, provides salary increases for performers and stage managers, and allows producers to make short-term hires.The union representing theater actors and stage managers has ratified a new contract that provides pay increases for those working on Broadway and, in a move prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, allows producers to make short-term hires to cover absent actors.Actors’ Equity Association announced Monday that its membership had voted in favor of the three-year contract, which by late 2024 would raise the minimum salary for performers working on Broadway to $2,638 per week. That reflects three years of pay increases: 5 percent this year, 4 percent next year, and 4 percent the following year.The Broadway contract, negotiated by Equity and the Broadway League, applies to commercial productions on Broadway, as well as to so-called sit-down productions, which are extended runs of commercial shows elsewhere in the country.The contract is important because Broadway is the segment of the American theater world where artists can most reliably make a living wage, and also because provisions in this contract influence others in the industry. The union will next turn its attention to negotiating contracts for touring shows and regional theaters (the regional theater contract also applies to the four New York nonprofits that operate Broadway houses).This Broadway contract, which goes into effect immediately, is the first negotiated since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. As shows returned, the challenge of staying open when company members tested positive for the coronavirus called attention to the important work of understudies, swings and standbys who keep shows going when illness strikes, and also highlighted the tension between a historic show-must-go-on ethic and disease transmission.The contract is the first to provide paid sick leave for anyone working on an Equity contract; previously, those earning above a certain amount were not entitled to paid sick days. In another first, the contract caps how many roles a swing can cover in one performance.And the contract allows for the use of short-term actors, with rehearsal time, to cover performer absences. The provision was a concession by the union to the producers.The union also highlighted a few wins for its members: a limited number of very long rehearsal days, and fewer rehearsal hours post-opening.The contract includes several new provisions prompted by discussion within the industry, and the broader society, about diversity concerns. Among them: commitments to employ technicians for certain hair styles, to consider gender identity when identifying spaces for dressing rooms and bathrooms, to set up a committee to talk about onstage intimacy, and to improve casting notices for those with disabilities.Kate Shindle, the president of Actors’ Equity, said the deal was a compromise reflecting the economics of the moment. The contract was ratified by a smaller margin than some previous pacts, suggesting disagreement within the union’s membership about whether it was good enough.“The industry is not entirely back yet, and while we were looking to reinvent the whole way the theater industry operates, we’re also faced with real financial considerations,” Shindle said.She said the wage increases were significant at a time when inflation is high, as are real estate costs in New York (which, of course, is where many Broadway workers live). She also noted that many in the industry had not had work while theaters were shut down, making their current salaries more important.Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, said in a statement that she was pleased with the ratification of the agreement, “which we believe represents a significant step forward for our industry.”She said several provisions “were ultimately directly responsive to the push from the union for less time spent in rehearsal and more time off for actors,” and she also hailed the diversity provisions, which were, she said, “in the forefront of our priorities.”“A key component to these changes is language that will allow us to hold everyone, including actors working on our productions, to the same standards when creating a safe and inclusive working environment for all,” she said. “We were able to achieve all of these significant improvements for each side while providing a meaningful and yet responsible economic package.” More

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      New York Philharmonic Agrees to Restore Pay for Musicians

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      After a stronger-than-expected season, the orchestra said it would reverse pay cuts imposed at the height of the pandemic.When the coronavirus pandemic erupted in 2020, battering the cultural sector and forcing the New York Philharmonic to cancel a season, the orchestra worked to cut costs, slashing its musicians’ pay by 25 percent.The Philharmonic promised at the time to reverse those cuts, which provided more than $20 million in savings, once its financial outlook brightened. And on Monday, the orchestra announced it would do so in September, much earlier than expected.The decision to restore pay is a milestone in the Philharmonic’s recovery, and it offered some hope that the worst of the pandemic, which cost the orchestra more than $27 million in anticipated ticket revenue, had passed.“There’s nothing more important than our musicians,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “It was just a very important act to make.”Borda said government grants and loans, an increase in donations and better-than-expected ticket sales during the 2021-22 season made the decision possible. The orchestra is on track to finish its season without missing a performance, and it just concluded a series of concerts in Europe, at a time when many ensembles have been unable to tour.“We’re in a different phase of life now,” she said.Geffen Hall, seen here in March, will reopen in fall.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesThe Philharmonic is at a pivotal moment. The $550 million renovation of its home, David Geffen Hall, is to be completed in the fall. And the orchestra is searching for a music director to replace its departing leader, Jaap van Zweden, who steps down in 2024.The pay cuts had been a source of distress among players as the Philharmonic prepared for its new chapter.In December 2020, the Philharmonic and its musicians agreed to a four-year contract that included 25 percent cuts to base pay, which was then around $2,900 per week, through August 2023. Under the deal, pay was set to gradually increase until the expiration of the contract in September 2024, though musicians would have been paid less at the end than they were before the pandemic.But as coronavirus cases fell last year and audiences returned, the Philharmonic’s fiscal outlook brightened. Ticket sales in the 2021-22 season have been better than expected: Attendance at subscription concerts was 90 percent, though the orchestra was playing in smaller halls with Geffen being renovated. Donations have been strong, rising by 11 percent to $31.5 million in 2020, the last year for which data is available. The Philharmonic also received grants and loans of more than $16 million from the federal government.In October, the Philharmonic began making payments to musicians to offset the pay cuts. But it was not until Monday that the orchestra vowed to fully restore musicians’ pay for the remainder of the contract.The trombonist Colin Williams, the head of the players’ negotiating committee, said the decision would help reassure musicians who have grappled with the uncertainties of the pandemic.“We’re feeling much more confident about our institution again — our place in it and our place in the city,” he said in an interview. “We somehow weathered this incredibly traumatic time and have come out of it stronger and more cohesive than we were before.”Borda said the Philharmonic still faced financial risks, including the possible emergence of new variants of the coronavirus. While the orchestra remains in what she called “a state of suspended fluidity,” she said it was important to stay focused on the future, including the opening of Geffen Hall, which she described as “light at the end of the tunnel.”“We improvise, we move forward,” she said. “We are placing our money on the fact that we are moving ahead.” More

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      Actors in ‘Waitress’ Tour Seek to Join Labor Union

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      Employees of a nonunion production are seeking improved compensation and safety protocols, saying a union version of the same musical pays better.A group of actors and stage managers employed by a nonunion touring production of the musical “Waitress” is seeking union representation, emboldened by a growing focus on working conditions in the theater business and by the labor movement’s recent successes in other industries.Actors’ Equity Association, a labor union representing 51,000 performers and stage managers, said it had collected signatures from more than the 30 percent of workers required to seek an election, and that on Tuesday it had submitted an election petition to the National Labor Relations Board, which conducts such elections.The number of people affected is small — there are 22 actors and stage managers employed by the tour, according to Equity — but the move is significant because it is the first time Equity has tried to organize a nonunion tour since an unsuccessful effort two decades ago to unionize a touring production of “The Music Man.” (The union also sought a boycott of that production.)Union officials said the “Waitress” tour was an obvious place for an organizing campaign because of an unusually clear comparison: There are currently two touring companies of that musical, one of which is represented by the union and one of which is not. The workers in the nonunion tour are being paid about one-third of what the workers in the union company are making, and have lesser safety protections, Equity said. (The minimum union actor salary is $2,244 per week.)“We thought it was not right and not fair, so we approached them to see if they were interested in us representing them,” said Stefanie Frey, the union’s director of organizing and mobilization. Frey said that the productions were so similar that some of the nonunion performers have been asked to teach performers in the union production, and that some have moved from the nonunion production to the union production. “It’s an obvious group of people getting exploited,” she said.Jennifer Ardizzone-West, the chief operating officer at NETworks Presentations, the company that is producing the nonunion “Waitress” tour, declined to offer an immediate reaction, saying, “Until we see the actual filing, it is premature for me to comment.”Tours are an important, and lucrative, part of the Broadway economy. During the 2018-19 theater season — the last full season before the pandemic — unionized touring shows grossed $1.6 billion and were attended by 18.5 million people, according to the Broadway League. Similar statistics are not readily available for nonunion tours, but Frey said, “The nonunion tour world has grown over the last 15 years.”Equity is in the process of hiring two additional organizers as it seeks to expand its efforts, according to a union spokesman, David Levy, who noted recent successful efforts to organize some employees at REI, Starbucks and Amazon. The National Labor Relations Board said last week that the number of union election petitions has been increasing dramatically.Frey said the long pandemic shutdown of theaters had also contributed to a new interest in organizing in the theater industry. “Workers are feeling a little bit more of their power and want to fight for what they deserve in a different way,” she said. More