We will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.

Solidarity

That's not just a word to the Broadway theatrical community. For the second time in this decade, we have felt it and lived it. And each time that solidarity is tested, we become stronger for it, individually and as a community. You, the Producer, do this. We rediscover that part of the human spirit that we have been alienated from, the power of the group, the tribe, the union. This is a sense that can only be found during times of mutual trial.

Today started with a sense of solemn commitment. We were beginning a course of action that was not one we chose but rather one that was forced upon us. There were no cheers when the crews walked out of their theatres. There were no cheers when those out on the street refused to pick up their tools and instead picked up picket signs. We had to break our first commandment, “the show must go on.”

It was a trial. As a group, we had to call on those skills most commonly found inside of the theatre, not outside of one. We had to organize ourselves into action, with an aim and a goal. The groundwork had been laid and we had been given our new tools but we had to learn how to really use them. Some started to walk right away and some defiantly stood their ground. Through the long morning and afternoon some of us discovered we had not dressed warmly enough. All of us have worked in the cold, the heat, and the rain so weather is not something we are unaccustomed to. We just need to be prepared. Some of use got foot weary. All of us have spent hours upon hours on our feet, in grids, on trucks, on studio floors. This not something we are unaccustomed to. We just need to be prepared. Now we know what to expect. It will be like any long load-in, hour upon hour on our feet, in the cold. This not something we are unaccustomed to.

The late afternoon was the hardest. We were alone on the line. We were tired, cold, sore and determined.

Then they started to arrive. The other members of our theatrical community joined us on the line and spirits lifted. Where there were a few determined people trudging along, now there were many. Now there was cheering when passing cars honked in support. Matrons of a certain age, union members for decades, carried signs and smiled. House Managers, Box Office Personnel, Chorus Members, Dancers, Actors, Musicians, union members all, walked and carried signs in support of our common struggle. And we did what we knew best. We had a big finish.

You have united us as a community.

We will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. This not something we are unaccustomed to. We’ve put your shows on. We have worked long hours and not seen home but briefly, for weeks at a time. Sacrifices come with the entrance into this community. Sacrifices you now seem to be unaware of but we know intimately. And now that common strength is united against you and we will not fail.

We will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes.

I are a riter.

Those Left Coast folks sure can go out on strike good. Websites, podcasts, Youtube, so cool.
Actually this dispute is doing a great deal of good for organized labor. These highly creative types are using every available media to get their message out and I think the rest of us can take quite a few lessons from them. As someone who has just started blogging (learning to create a link was a big deal), their use of podcasts to just talk about the reasons for the strike, their use of Youtube to show off the real people behind the dispute and even graphics to reveal arcane financial information is terrific.

To help understand the basics behind the dispute, go to Why We Fight and don't miss the Frank Capra reference in the title.

For information from Hollywood picket lines (and all you favorite stars), go to United Hollywood an unofficial blog started by a group of strike captains from the WGA.

And for a very human look at writing in Hollywood and television, go to the samandjimgotohollywood and listen to the entire podcast Show #35 because they reference the recent rallies, being conservative, scabs, residuals.

Many of my Brothers and Sisters in IATSE are losing quite a bit of work because the strike but I think I speak for any union worker in this country. Any group of people that are risking their livelihoods in order to improve their voice at work, deserve to be supported. There are new ways to help spread the union message and we have to use all of them, all the time.

Thanks WGA, your fight is our fight.

Who's Driving This Bus?

According to a Crain's New York article about Charlotte St. Martin the head flack for the League of American Theatres and Producers, she is bewildered and surprised.

“I am surprised that with the number of hours we’ve been at the table together, we haven’t made more progress in really developing a new contract that’s more representative of business conditions today,”

So are the stagehands.

“[We] are trying to improve the future of the health of the industry so Broadway will continue to survive in times that aren’t as healthy as today,” Ms. St. Martin said. “When you fill as many seats as we’re filling and still have losses every night, you have to have new business conditions.”

Now the problem is the new business conditions (don't look at the grosses) and not the lack of quality scripts.

So the PR campaign has taken a new tack. The League of American Theatres and Producers is trying to save the industry from it's own success. Let me see if I can get this straight. Times are good so Local One and the theatrical unions have to tighten our belts so that when times are bad, Local One and the theatrical unions can tighten our belts. And you're surprised that the League hasn't made more progress at the table?

An insight into the lack of awareness that the Producers have about the day to day workings of a theatre can be found in a CNN transcript of an interview with Jonathan Tisch chairman of the Loews Hotel chain and Ms St. Martins former boss.

He spent a couple of days working in one of his hotels for a short lived TLC show called "Now Who's Boss? Should Ms. Martin have been paying attention she might have gotten some insight into the inner working of show business. The show only lasted for 5 episodes. Hello Unemployment. I can only presume they cleared the illegals out of the hotel before the TV crew got there.

"TISCH: One of the reasons I wanted to do the show was to have a better understanding of something that I knew already, which is the concept that our employees are more responsible for our success as a hotel company than in many ways I am. So to go down there, and having done the housekeeping position, and look at the 35 individuals who do this every single day on a particular shift, and also to understand that they're from 12 different nations, they speak six different languages, and somehow every single day this has to come together to turn over an 800-room hotel, and make the beds and clean the bathrooms. So I just wanted to tell them that I appreciate what they do."

I suggest that Ms. St Martin, the investors and the producers jump in on the next load-in. "Hey Charlotte, take off your heels and drop these points from the grid." 'Hey Trust Fund Baby, run these feeders from the basement to the jump and make it neat." "Yo, Max Bialystock, the trucks are here."

No Moving Lights, No Tony

WARNING: If you think that a moving head is the same as a bobble head, you may not want to continue reading this post.

Part of the misinformation campaign that the League has waged is to take proposals about staffing and twist them out of context in order to make Local One look like a bunch of fat, lazy, union guys out to that do nothing and get over-paid for it. Granted there is a kernel of truth in it. The percentage of people who work like that tends to be universal. Theatre management is not immune to the person who drifts through work, having little ambition and taking up space.

One of the most convoluted of these issues is the one where "In some instances up to three electricians have operated the board that controls light, projection and sound cues -- a job that can be handled by one electrician." Ignoring for the moment that this is a work rule the League already has, consider what kind of machine is that can do all these things. Lighting, projection and sound. For somebody who started in the business when rotary dimmers and 6x9 Lekos were the norm, I stand in awe at these what has happened in the course of my career in terms of technology.

When "Chorus Line" opened in 1975, Tharon Musser was the first to bring a computer board to Broadway to control lighting cues. When Vari-lites first came out, their proprietary systems were so protected that techs had to open them up and work on them under a sheet or drop in order to keep prying eyes away.

In today’s world lighting designers say "no moving lights, no Tony." Everyone who has read this far has seen a Vari-Lite in action even if they don't know the proper name for them. But far fewer are aware of the newest equipment that this contract issues revolves around.

The extraordinary High End Systems has a line of units that are outstanding. The DL-2 digital lighting unit that has enormous capability. I won't go into the details but it lights, it projects, it sees in the dark and it can record video. High End also has a terrific range of other products such as the Whole Hog 3 board and the Showgun luminaries.

There are some terrific Strand boards that are radically different from the the older boards. There is also a line of LED washes from Color Kinetics that can create milions of colors and consume very little electricity. The Color Blast and the Color Blaze line are really going to change the future of theatrical lighting.

It takes a pretty sophisticated programmer and operator to be able to do all this and the Local has several. This is the future and we, as stagehands, embrace it. So when you hear the Producers complain about costs, look at the type of equipment we run and the dollars that this equipment and its operators earn them.

Darpa Geek Stuff

Tomorrow is Darpa's Urban Challenge, a race designed for autonomous vehicles. The vehicle must complete a 60 mile closed course in six hours, following California traffic laws and mixing with 50 human driven traffic.


“Vehicles competing in the Urban Challenge will have to think like human drivers and continually make split-second decisions to avoid moving vehicles, including robotic vehicles without drivers, and operate safely on the course. The urban setting adds considerable complexity to the challenge faced by the robotic vehicles, and replicates the environments where many of today’s military missions are conducted.”

-Dr. Norman Whitaker, Urban Challenge Program Manager

Wired has been covering the run up to the race in it's Danger Room blog.

I love this kind of stuff. The entertainment business has gotten technologically more complex and computer driven. Many stagehands now come into the business with a love of spectacle and technology and are terrific engineers and programmers.

The race will be webcast, starting at 7:30 AM, PST.

Accidents as a way of life

I like to read Roadie.net because it's a look into life on the road and it's a little different world than Broadway. We do exactly the same things(set up stages, lighting, sound) and often in the same kind of lousy weather. However in NYC, we (the local crew) get off work, get on public transportation and sleep in our own beds. The roadies live their lives from arena to hotel to the bus and back.

One of the things often overlooked in the recent dispute with the League is the quality of the Local One crews. Since we do this work regularly, incessantly, we're pretty damn good at it and pretty fast. It's that whole NY minute thing. And we're safe at it. I recently spoke with a Onesie who is out of town. He told me that he was appalled that the Local Crew he was working on took 4 hours to set up part of an opera. "It would have taken an hour at the State and we would have gotten yelled at for taking to long!" Opera is a way of life in NYC. Not so much in other places, so it takes a little longer.

Rarely do we have problems like the canopy collapse at the Akon concert at Emory. In reading the blog about it on Roadie.net, it seem that this is the second time in two years that this has happened to this particular company.

In Spain, three stagehands are killed in a collapse at a Stones concert.

And for anyone who deals regularily with issues of public assembly, be it backstage or FOH, this Great White Fire video should be required viewing at least once a month, as a refresher. It's long and very difficult to watch so be forewarned. Go to the second entry for a link that skip the pop-ups.

In Local One, we've had our share of accidents, regretfully. Most can't be avoided. The causes can vary from exhaustion to carelessness to poor planning. We work to avoid them. The premise is that if I look out for my coworker, they will look out for me. This still holds true for us.

One other place I recommend is Bill Sapsis's site. Devoted to riggers, it promotes safety and technology.

Pigs, Lipstick, Producers and the Press

In The Playgoer post about Linda Winer’s complaint about the Producers of “Walmartopia” and "Grease" pulling quotes, he cites a made up word to describe the situation, contextomy. Here is an example of just what I was describing in my previous post about the stagehands that complain about the press publishing the “lies” that the League of American Theatres and Producers are putting out about Local One without the context. Readers tend to accept on the surface what is printed or published but when a writer is personally involved, they’re shocked that the news bears little semblance to the truth. The Critics Circle wants to create a “commission” to research ethical breaches in the area of theatre reviews. A lot of research has already been done about the whole lack of quality journalism at FAIR or Project Censured. I would suggest that Howard Kissel, who is to run the Commission, start searching for ethical breaches on the front page and work his way back to the sports pages.