By Jeffrey Sweet
Tuesday morning, I was handing out leaflets on Wall Street. Tuesday night, I was being offered leaflets on Broadway.
So it goes currently in New York City where much of the theatre and film world is involved in a pair of strikes.
The leaflets I handed out were in support of the strike of the Writers Guild of America (of which I am a member). The issue? Serious participation in the income derived from – and anticipated to be derived from – DVD sales and new distribution schemes through the Internet. Management has been telling writers that Internet technology is too new and ill-defined to be able to promise there will be any money to divide. A new video [which can be seen as part of Jon Robin Baitz’s article HERE] establishes that at the same time management reps have been saying this to writers, they’ve been saying pretty much the opposite to investors they’re trying to hold and attract.
I’m fairly lucky in that little of my income these days comes from film and TV, so I attend the rallies and actions without the sense of urgency that some of my colleagues feel. Frankly, I’m enjoying catching up with old friends and meeting people whose work I admire.
I run into Tony Kushner on the subway heading down to one of the picketing sites and he tells me he’s working on the libretto of an opera to be composed with Jeanine Tesori for the Metropolitan Opera as a follow-up to their Caroline, or Change. I suggest he might get something out of chatting with William M. Hoffman, who wrote the libretto for the Met’s very successful Ghosts at Versailles with John Corigliano. Tony comments that Bill has also written some not terribly pleasant things about him recently. One would think that two gay Jewish playwrights who both write opera would find common ground, but Bill’s political views have gotten increasingly conservative, and he and Tony disagree strongly over policies regarding Israel. I incline toward Tony’s political perspective, but Bill is an old friend. Bill offers his perspective, I politely disagree, and then we talk about theatre.
Wednesday, I run into David Picker, who was a producer for United Artists and had a hand in the films of West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. One of the screenwriters says, “Hey, aren’t you management?” Turns out David’s writing now himself and is in sympathy with WGA goals. He talks about his attempt to get Jerome Robbins to direct the film version of Fiddler, but Robbins had an unhappy time working on the film of West Side Story so he declined. Picker is a dance fan, and he tried to put together a project on dance for Robbins to direct. The subject was going to be Nijinsky, but somehow Robbins dropped out and Herb Ross (another former choreographer) ended up directing the picture. David is filled with stories about Robert Altman, John Frankenheimer, Otto Preminger, Blake Edwards, John Sturges, Harry Belafonte and a lot of the other people he worked with during his days in the studio system. I tell him he should write a book. “Funny you should mention that ...” he says.
Marshall Brickman is also on the line Wednesday, remarking to friends that he is caught up in both strikes. Brickman, who co-wrote Annie Hall and Manhattan with Woody Allen (arguably Allen’s two best movies), also co-wrote Jersey Boys, the huge Broadway hit based on the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. At the moment, though, it and most other Broadway shows aren’t playing.
The stagehands for most of the houses are on strike, and the result has been the shutting down of all but a handful of shows for the first time since a short musicians union strike a few years back. Shows that had been previewing and were supposed to open this week are stalled in limbo, and shows that were flourishing are having to refund tickets. Many of the actors have joined the picket lines in support of the stagehands. And it was from picketers in front of The Color Purple that I was offered the leaflet I mentioned in my lede.
Because the stagehands have different contracts with different houses, there are a handful of houses in which performances are going on as usual, and those shows are reaping the benefit. My neighbor Kerry Butler is starring in Xanadu, the tongue-in-cheek, small-scale staging of a notoriously bad movie musical from the disco era. I saw her husband, writer Joey Mazzarino, on the picket line on Wednesday, and he said they’ve been playing to full houses at the Helen Hayes Theatre this week. As well they should anyway – it’s goofy fun, and Kerry manages to be simultaneously ironic and charming playing a goddess who swooshes around on roller skates and talks with an Australian accent (in tribute to Olivia Newton-John, who played the part in the film).
I am reminded that, before she took on Xanadu, Kerry was in a workshop of The Little Mermaid, the Broadway-bound stage version of the Disney movie featuring an expanded Alan Menken score. It, too, is held up during the stagehands strike. Our Wednesday WGA picketing took place in front of the Disney store on Fifth Avenue, and Ariel is one of the characters that was obscured from the rest of the street by our signs.
(c) Jeffrey Sweet 2007
Jeffrey Sweet is a playwright, journalist and teacher, probably best known for his play THE VALUE OF NAMES, the musical WHAT ABOUT LUV? (which played the Orange Tree many years ago), and a history of Chicago's Second City comedy troupe called SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY. A resident artist at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theatre, nine of his plays will soon appear in anthology published by Northwestern University Press.
So it goes currently in New York City where much of the theatre and film world is involved in a pair of strikes.
The leaflets I handed out were in support of the strike of the Writers Guild of America (of which I am a member). The issue? Serious participation in the income derived from – and anticipated to be derived from – DVD sales and new distribution schemes through the Internet. Management has been telling writers that Internet technology is too new and ill-defined to be able to promise there will be any money to divide. A new video [which can be seen as part of Jon Robin Baitz’s article HERE] establishes that at the same time management reps have been saying this to writers, they’ve been saying pretty much the opposite to investors they’re trying to hold and attract.
I’m fairly lucky in that little of my income these days comes from film and TV, so I attend the rallies and actions without the sense of urgency that some of my colleagues feel. Frankly, I’m enjoying catching up with old friends and meeting people whose work I admire.
I run into Tony Kushner on the subway heading down to one of the picketing sites and he tells me he’s working on the libretto of an opera to be composed with Jeanine Tesori for the Metropolitan Opera as a follow-up to their Caroline, or Change. I suggest he might get something out of chatting with William M. Hoffman, who wrote the libretto for the Met’s very successful Ghosts at Versailles with John Corigliano. Tony comments that Bill has also written some not terribly pleasant things about him recently. One would think that two gay Jewish playwrights who both write opera would find common ground, but Bill’s political views have gotten increasingly conservative, and he and Tony disagree strongly over policies regarding Israel. I incline toward Tony’s political perspective, but Bill is an old friend. Bill offers his perspective, I politely disagree, and then we talk about theatre.
Wednesday, I run into David Picker, who was a producer for United Artists and had a hand in the films of West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. One of the screenwriters says, “Hey, aren’t you management?” Turns out David’s writing now himself and is in sympathy with WGA goals. He talks about his attempt to get Jerome Robbins to direct the film version of Fiddler, but Robbins had an unhappy time working on the film of West Side Story so he declined. Picker is a dance fan, and he tried to put together a project on dance for Robbins to direct. The subject was going to be Nijinsky, but somehow Robbins dropped out and Herb Ross (another former choreographer) ended up directing the picture. David is filled with stories about Robert Altman, John Frankenheimer, Otto Preminger, Blake Edwards, John Sturges, Harry Belafonte and a lot of the other people he worked with during his days in the studio system. I tell him he should write a book. “Funny you should mention that ...” he says.
Marshall Brickman is also on the line Wednesday, remarking to friends that he is caught up in both strikes. Brickman, who co-wrote Annie Hall and Manhattan with Woody Allen (arguably Allen’s two best movies), also co-wrote Jersey Boys, the huge Broadway hit based on the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. At the moment, though, it and most other Broadway shows aren’t playing.
The stagehands for most of the houses are on strike, and the result has been the shutting down of all but a handful of shows for the first time since a short musicians union strike a few years back. Shows that had been previewing and were supposed to open this week are stalled in limbo, and shows that were flourishing are having to refund tickets. Many of the actors have joined the picket lines in support of the stagehands. And it was from picketers in front of The Color Purple that I was offered the leaflet I mentioned in my lede.
Because the stagehands have different contracts with different houses, there are a handful of houses in which performances are going on as usual, and those shows are reaping the benefit. My neighbor Kerry Butler is starring in Xanadu, the tongue-in-cheek, small-scale staging of a notoriously bad movie musical from the disco era. I saw her husband, writer Joey Mazzarino, on the picket line on Wednesday, and he said they’ve been playing to full houses at the Helen Hayes Theatre this week. As well they should anyway – it’s goofy fun, and Kerry manages to be simultaneously ironic and charming playing a goddess who swooshes around on roller skates and talks with an Australian accent (in tribute to Olivia Newton-John, who played the part in the film).
I am reminded that, before she took on Xanadu, Kerry was in a workshop of The Little Mermaid, the Broadway-bound stage version of the Disney movie featuring an expanded Alan Menken score. It, too, is held up during the stagehands strike. Our Wednesday WGA picketing took place in front of the Disney store on Fifth Avenue, and Ariel is one of the characters that was obscured from the rest of the street by our signs.
(c) Jeffrey Sweet 2007
Jeffrey Sweet is a playwright, journalist and teacher, probably best known for his play THE VALUE OF NAMES, the musical WHAT ABOUT LUV? (which played the Orange Tree many years ago), and a history of Chicago's Second City comedy troupe called SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY. A resident artist at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theatre, nine of his plays will soon appear in anthology published by Northwestern University Press.