Sunday, February 15, 2015

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

Does Commercial Broadway Need a Tax Break?

The Clyde Fitch Report: This is a short post but an important one. On Thurs., Feb. 5, a press release was issued by the Broadway League, which is the national trade organization for Broadway, touting proposed legislation by Sen. Chuck Schumer to incentivize investments in live performance, including Broadway shows.

Equity Unveils 99-Seat Plan Calling for L.A. Actors’ ‘Minimum Wage’

Backstage: The Actors' Equity Association has put forward a proposal to revamp the 99-Seat Theatre Plan setting the union on what could be a collision course with Los Angeles small theater producers.

Equity wants to create a new agreement that will guarantee actors and stage managers are paid “a salary no less than the legally mandated minimum wage and ensure members are paid for rehearsals as well as performance hours," according to a release. Under the current 99-seat agreement, Equity actors can be paid a stipend of as little as $7 a performance for the first four weeks of a black-box theater run.

L.A. Theater Producers: Minimum Wage ‘Impossible’

Backstage: Equity’s proposed minimum wage requirement for actors is “financially impossible," according to a group of Los Angeles intimate theater producers.

Members of the Review Committee, created from the settlement of the 1988 Equity Waiver Wars, met Monday at the Matrix Theatre on Melrose. Simon Levy, producing director of the Fountain Theatre, said myriad options were being considered, including legal action.
 

How Live Nation exploits low-wage workers to stage its rock concerts

The Washington Post: Thirty-six hours at Bonnaroo, the massive Tennessee music festival, sounds like a great way to spend a June weekend. Unless you’re working backstage without breaks, fighting exhaustion, because one of your colleagues called in sick and there’s nobody else to fill in -- like Katherine Walding did last summer.

“To say that I was potentially a danger to my crew is an understatement,” says Walding, a stagehand with a company called Crew One, which staffs rock concerts and festivals across the South. “That’s what you do if you want to get paid. It’s all you can do.”

Cirque May Walk Tightrope on Ownership?

www.cirquefascination.com: Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté may be ready to sell control of his company as it reaches a crossroads in its 30-year history.

Laliberté mused publicly in December about selling a 20- to 30-per-cent stake in the Montreal-based entertainment giant. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said he was looking for a partner to help expand the business globally.

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