Equity in the News Deadline

Actors’ Equity is warning members that New York City’s just-launched “Open Culture” program of outdoor performances on city streets does not meet the union’s minimum standards for wages or its Covid-19 safety protocols.

A select number of now-dark Broadway venues will begin opening in April for a series of live- performance pop-up events that could establish the safety protocols needed for the theater industry’s eventual return.

Leaders of the Hollywood’s unions today outlined their legislative agenda to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the arts, entertainment and media industries, including a call on Congress to pass a flurry of legislation to increase federal arts funding; establish diversity objectives for grant recipients; to leverage federal tax incentives to encourage diverse hiring, and to protect the rights of unions to organize nonunion workers.

In this exclusive column for Deadline, Kate Shindle, president of Actors’ Equity Association, pledges support from another theater sector: The actors and stage managers in her union, she writes, could put their highly specialized skills and talents to effective use in the drive to provide Covid-19 vaccines to as many Americans as possible, as quickly as possible.

Actors’ Equity has condemned President Donald Trump’s “outrageous” proposal to freeze $110 million in the 2021 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Actors’ Equity has temporarily paused its consideration of safety plans for live theater productions in California as the state battles unprecedented infection rates of Covid-19.

A growing chorus of entertainment industry union leaders is condemning Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol building by supporters of President Donald Trump – and the politicians who incited the violence.

Last spring, in the early days of Broadway’s Covid-19 pandemic shutdown, news reports and industry chatter referred to an eventual (and, it seemed, imminent) reopening as if a light switch would be flipped and the marquees of all 41 theaters would light up the Midtown night. Actors had left their dressing rooms full of the usual personal stuff — street clothes, photos, charms — as if they’d soon be back from a long holiday weekend.

As film and TV jobs have migrated from Hollywood to production hubs all across the country, the industry’s reliably Democratic-voting union members could play a key role in the outcome of the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union representing professional actors and stage managers in live theatre, said 720 of its 780 members employed by Walt Disney World have been laid off, part of the sweeping 28,000 staff reduction underway across the company’s U.S. parks business.