Grinch Returns Today to Steal More Hearts

Posted by Bruce Miller
Hannah Zold’s pal, Aaron Galligan-Stierle, will be back on the boards today playing Papa Who in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, thanks to an injunction issued by NY State Judge Helen Freedman. In fact, he’ll have ten shows this weekend, and, I’m sure, a much appreciated paycheck.

But if Jujamcyn Theatres LLC has its way—Jujamcyn is the corporate entity that owns the St. James Theater in which The Grinch is performed—Aaron and his castmates will be back out in the cold again next week.

The Grinch is produced by James Sanna. “We got our Miracle on 44th Street,” he said after the judge’s decision was announced. Hearing the good news, the child actors in The Grinch sang and danced on the courtyard steps.

So what gives?

The labor dispute is between Local One of the stagehands union and the League of American Theatres and Producers, which owns the 27 Broadway theatres affected by the strike. Well, almost. Nine of the 27 theatres are owned by the Nederlander Producing Company of America Inc, which is not a member of the League of American Theatres and Producers and has its own contract with Local One. But the Nederlanders have agreed to stand with the League during this labor dispute.

Apparently 26 of the 27 shows taking place in the League and Nederlander theatres are also co-produced by the League and Nederlander organizations. But Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas is different. Even though the show takes place in a League building, the show is produced solely by James Sanna and his partners. And Sanna has his own contract with Local One, a contract that is not affected by the strike.

This being the case, I don’t know why Local One decided to strike The Grinch in the first place, but they did. Then, when James Sanna brought it to the union’s attention that he had a separate, viable contract with the union, and that his show was not co-produced by the League, Sanna and Local One triumphantly announced that The Grinch would re-open.

But by that time the Jujamcyn organization had seen all the bad press the union had received for shutting down a children’s show at Christmastime, so they decided to lock the doors of the St. James until the entire strike was resolved, putting more pressure on the union.

With his show once again closed, Sanna and Local One went to court to seek an injunction that required Jujamcyn to unlock the doors.

Thankfully, Judge Freedman saw the folly in all this gamesmanship and ordered the Jujamcyn folks to get out of the way and allow the show to go on. “I think one Grinch in this city is enough," Freedman told the packed courtroom.

Immediately thereafter, the Jujamcyn organization announced that they were filing an appeal.

As Charlie Brown would say, ...

--Bruce Miller

Don't Rain on My Mom's Parade

Posted by Bruce Miller

My mother was a native New Yorker, reared on Staten Island, educated and employed in Manhattan. So every Thanksgiving we were all but required to join her in front of the TV to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

My Mom won't be reading this blog, so I guess I can finally confess that I never really cared for the hot air balloons and I was only mildly interested in the floats. But I always liked watching the production numbers from the Broadway shows that are performed on the street in Herald Square at the very beginning of the national broadcast.

You’ll have to turn on Channel 12 early to catch ‘em, but this year there will be performances by the casts of Legally Blonde, Mary Poppins, Young Frankenstein and Xanadu. The latter three shows are not affected by the stagehands strike, and so their performances will include full costumes and props. But poor Legally Blonde—their costumes and props are being held hostage by the stagehands union (don’t ask cause I don’t know how or why) and so they’ll be performing in "substitute sportswear." As if dancing on rainy pavement weren’t difficult enough in your regular shoes.

Also of note, the Virginia Tech Regimental Band will be marching in this year’s parade in tribute to their fallen classmates.

Let’s tune in to cheer them all on.

--Bruce Miller

Latest News on Broadway Strike

For the latest info on the labor dispute that has brought the curtain down on most of Broadway, try clicking http://www.entertainment-link.com/event_details.asp?event_id=19079&gclid=CPe9kY_4548CFQhtFQodCWzR6w. From this page, you can click on other links to the latest news from various media outlets.

Talks between Local One (the stagehands union) and the League of American Theatre Producers (representing more than two dozen Broadway houses) began again yesterday (Saturday) and are scheduled to continue, providing some hope that a resolution and resumption of normal activity may happen sometime in the not too distant future.

--Bruce Miller

Broadway Shut Down by Labor Dispute

Posted by Bruce Miller

To view articles related to this subject, click on the following:

The Wall Street Journal
RedOrbit
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Tim Worstall Tabloid Edition
Fox News
NY Times
Variety

Well, it’s happened. Broadway is on strike.

This past Saturday, IATSE (the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) stunned just about everyone by directing their NYC chapter (Local One) to call a strike for 11 a.m., shutting down most of Broadway. IATSE is the same union whose members handle stagehand responsibilities for the largest venues right here in River City, including the Landmark Theatre and the Carpenter Center. None of Richmond’s independent theatres, including Barksdale and Theatre IV, work under IATSE contracts.

This strike affects Broadway only, and not even all of Broadway. Disney theatres have their own contract with IATSE, as do all of Broadway’s nonprofit venues (Circle in the Square, Manhattan Theatre Club, Roundabout). Consequently a few Broadway shows are still up and running: Young Frankenstein (which just opened at the Hilton), Mary Poppins, Xanadu, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Mauritius, Pygmalion, The Ritz and Cymbeline. And Off Broadway is also still going strong.

The strike shut down approximately two dozen Broadway theatres that are owned and operated by the members of The League of American Theatres and Producers. The strike began with Saturday’s matinee and will continue until … no one knows when. It was called for 11 a.m. to shut down an early family matinee of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Apparently no one saw the irony.

Local One has never called a strike before. And in late October, they promised to give advance warning before calling a strike now. On Saturday morning they broke that promise. This meant that thousands of tourists who had made their plans weeks in advance showed up in New York on Saturday, checked into their hotels, and then learned at the last moment that the shows they had come to see would not be taking place.

Refunds will be given for previously purchased show tickets, but the considerable transportation and accommodation expenses will have to be eaten by the audience members. And the ability to get last minute tickets to those few Broadway shows that are still running, or to Off Broadway shows, is extremely limited. On Saturday, internet tickets for Young Frankenstein were selling for $1,500—each!

Depending on which side you listen to, the strike is a self-serving folly or a defensible stand for fairness.

The heart of the labor dispute is not the amount of the wages paid to the individual worker, but the number of workers that the union requires the producers to hire. The last contract between The League of American Theatres and Producers (they’re the ones who own the majority of Broadway’s theatres and the strike is targeted at them) and Local One (representing the stagehands) expired in the summer. Since then, the League and Local One have not been able to agree on the number of workers required for load-ins, load-outs, and daily operations of a running show.

The expired contract required the League to hire, in many cases, more union workers than were actually needed to get the job done. The producers call this “featherbedding,” and they refuse to allow any future contract to include provisions that require the hiring of unneeded workers.

Before you agree 100% with this reasonable position, consider the stagehands’ point of view. When Broadway is running at capacity, the producers require approximately 2,500 stagehands to get the jobs done. The union has limited its membership to approximately 3,000 highly skilled workers. It’s a TOUGH union to join, and those who are members have years of experience at what they do.
The problem is that, due to the vagaries of show business, at any average point in time, only 500 or so of the union’s members are employed full time. And that was under the old contract. Shows open and shows close—and those decisions are all made by the producers in their own best financial interests. The “featherbedding” that was written into the previous contract (or, as the union would prefer me to say, the “job security provisions” that were written into the previous contract) simply take one small step toward ensuring that hardworking stagehands have the opportunity to earn a living wage even after the producers have decided to close a show.

I can understand and respect both points of view. Broadway requires the infrastructure provided by the 3,000 stagehands and their union. And it's foolhardy to require something and then refuse to pay for it, one way or another.

Hopefully, this labor dispute will be resolved soon. The ones suffering the most are all the theatre artists who won’t be paid while the strike continues, and all the audience members who will be disappointed by the cancellation of their holiday plans.

Perhaps now is the time for both sides to enter into the arbitration that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has offered, but, thus far, the warring parties have refused. And while that arbitration is going on, why not let the Broadway shows keep running? Let the Grinch who steals Christmas be a fantasy with a happy ending, not an ongoing reality with no end in sight.

--Bruce Miller

Taking Four Young Women to Broadway

Posted by Bruce Miller

The theatre gods (and The League of American Theaters and Pro-ducers) smiled on my daughter Hannah and me in mid-October. For a couple months, Hannah and her friends had been planning a theatre weekend in New York. (Hannah and her friends are in the foreground of the photo shown above, standing with four of the stars of A Chorus Line: Heather Parcells, Katherine Tokarz, Deidre Goodwin and Will Taylor.)

When their high school drama teacher was unable to accompany them on their dream tour of Broadway, they recruited me and another dad, Tony Oates, to serve as drowsy chaperones. Tony is a former Theatre IV Board member and the father of the young Tony Oates who was in our production of The Wizard of Oz last spring.

My daughter and her pals (Lizzie Holland, Rebekah Hupp and Nathalie Oates) are all very responsible young women—juniors at Trinity Episcopal High School. I was looking forward to spending time with them and getting to know my daughter’s friends.

The airfares were paid, the hotel rooms were booked, and the tickets were secured (at a discount via Broadway Box). Then on the Tuesday before our departure, labor negotiations broke down between the stagehands and the producers. For a few days it looked like the producers would call for a lockout, causing most Broadway theatres to shut down just about the time we were scheduled to be taxiing to the gate at JFK.

But fate was on our side. The labor dispute was put on hold, and everything went according to Hoyle.

Upcoming holiday travelers may not be as fortunate. On Oct 21, one week after our return to Richmond, the stagehand members of Local One voted unanimously to empower their leadership to call a strike during the month of December, when Broadway ticket sales are at their peak. Local One has never staged a strike before, and they have promised to give advance notice if they decide to call for one now. In the interim, negotiations are continuing between the stagehands and the producers. Hopefully everything will be resolved.

The last strike to close down Broadway lasted four days in 2003, and was called by the musicians union. Should a strike occur this December, the producers have promised full refunds and/or exchanges for all ticket holders.

Anyway, back to our October theatre weekend. We flew JetBlue, leaving Richmond at 6 a.m. Saturday morning and pulling our chairs up to the table for blueberry pancakes at the Evergreen on 47th Street by 9 a.m. For more info on how to get from JFK into Manhattan, click the label at the foot of this post that says “NYC on a Budget,” then scroll down through this post and you’ll come to “A Broadway Weekend – Part II: NYC on a Budget” (March 29, 2007).

We flew home on Sunday night at around 10 p.m. It was a whirlwind weekend, but we were able to see three shows in two days, spending only one night away from home.

I learned two new things this trip that were not included in my March 29 blog post.

Number One – There is now a $25 MetroCard that gives you twelve rides on the AirTrain (normally $5 each) instead of five. You buy the new $25 card at the appropriate machines just before you exit the AirTrain terminal on your way into Manhattan. Using this card, each of our AirTrain rides cost $2.17 instead of $5, saving the six of us $35 on the arriving and departing AirTrain trips. This $25 MetroCard doesn’t work on the subways, only on the AirTrain. You can still buy the $20 MetroCard for the subways, which actually gives you twelve subway rides instead of ten.

Number Two – When traveling with parties larger than four, and using either of the above mentioned MetroCards for the AirTrain or the subway, you can let four people through the turnstile on one card, but then you have to wait 18 minutes before using the card at this same stop for persons number five and six or more. It’s a crazy rule, because if you go to the clerk to explain the problem, they immediately issue you a new MetroCard that allows the remaining people to go through. Clearly they don’t mind you using one card for groups larger than four, but the turnstile computer won’t let you until you trade your MetroCard in with the clerk.

We arrived at the Millennium Broadway Hotel at around 10 a.m. The Millennium can be accessed from both 45th Street and 44th Street, and is located mid-block between Broadway (7th) and Avenue of the Americas (6th). They let us check our bags and suggested that we return at noon for an early check-in. The regular check-in time is 4 p.m., but we were able to check-in to three of our four rooms by 12:15.

The Millennium is a terrific bargain right now. It is a relatively new and very comfortable hotel (downright Ritzy by my standards), and currently offers some great deals that you can discover at http://www.millenniumhotels.com/millenniumnewyork/index.html. I recommend it highly.

In future posts, I’ll talk about the shows we saw, the street festival we visited, and some of the Barksdale/Theatre IV alum who are now starring on the Great White Way.

And if and when I hear any news about the possible strike, I’ll be sure to pass it along via this blog.

--Bruce Miller

(Added Sat. 11/10 - The Stagehand's union went on strike today, shutting down over 2 dozen Broadway productions. See this MSNBC article for details.)