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Actors Equity will picket nonunion 'Sound of Music' at the Benedum
Wednesday, October 11, 2000 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Editor
Maria's favorite things don't include pickets, but she can expect to meet them Nov. 21 when an upcoming nonunion tour of "The Sound of Music" arrives to spend Thanksgiving week at the Benedum Center as part of the Mellon Pittsburgh Broadway Series.
The target of "informational picketing" will be Barry Williams, playing Capt. Von Trapp. Corbin Bernsen was originally scheduled to headline the tour, but when Actors Equity, the national union of stage performers, protested his participation in a non-Equity show, Bernsen withdrew. Williams signed next, and when Equity protested, he resigned from the union.
An Equity member since 1974, Williams is best known for his role as Greg Brady on TV's "The Brady Bunch." But he has had an active stage career on Broadway ("Romance/Romance," "Pippin") and on tour ("City of Angels").
The "Sound of Music" tour is a recast version of last year's Equity tour starring Richard Chamberlain, which was directed by Susan Schulman, with Hallmark Cards as corporate sponsor. Both are still listed in the current publicity, although it isn't certain what Schulman's participation in this version has been.
No actors other than Williams have yet been advertised, though the show is in rehearsal in New York. It opens Oct. 27 in Fort Myers, Fla., and visits Memphis, Jacksonville and New Orleans before arriving in Pittsburgh.
"Greg Brady, Scab?" was the headline in Backstage, the national performing arts newspaper. As Equity sees it, there's no question mark. When Equity protested, Williams claimed "financial core" status, a distinction designed to allow union members to dissociate themselves from a union's political activities.
Alan Eisenberg, Equity executive director, informed Williams on Sept. 28 that his "financial core" claim was in effect a resignation and, since he had signed with the tour before resigning, Equity was filing "disciplinary charges." Further, Equity is asking the other two big actors' unions, the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, to "institute similar disciplinary proceedings." Those sanctions could range from a fine to expulsion.
In his letter, Eisenberg called Williams' conduct "especially heinous at a time when thousands of actors are striking for better wages and working conditions" -- referring to the current AFTRA/SAG strike against TV commercial producers, which may actually delay their taking action against Williams. "For someone who has made his career in television," Eisenberg continued, "it is immoral that you would attempt to undermine our efforts to ensure better wages for all actors."
Equity is contemplating how to protest in the tour's early stops. Picketing may not be it, since Southern cities aren't generally as friendly to unions as Pittsburgh.
Though singer Helen Reddy, an Equity member, was listed in the show's early publicity to play the Baroness, she is not in the latest version, so apparently she thought better of it. If she hadn't, Equity says it would have charged her, too.
The "Sound of Music" tour is produced by Troika Entertainment, based in Rockville, Md., which is described as "well outside the New York mainstream" by its Web site, which further explains that "the company prides itself on thinking 'outside the apple.' "
What that means is suggested by figures cited by Backstage. Equity minimum scale for actors on tour is $1,180 a week plus a per diem totaling $700 a week for housing and meals. Equity's information is that Troika is paying $400 plus "a low per diem," without any of the usual health coverage and pension benefits. Williams is of course receiving much more than the minimum.
"I believe Troika is telling stars they can get away with this," said David Lotz, an Equity spokesman. "But while they are paid handsomely, they work beside actors getting a third of a living wage."
Troika also produced the non-union tour of "Grease" starring Eddie Mekka and Cindy Williams (no relation) that played Heinz Hall in August. Before that tour, Cindy Williams resigned from the union; Equity did not pursue her or Mekka because it didn't take notice in time.
For "Grease," Troika rented Heinz Hall to present the show on its own, although the advertising didn't differentiate it from a Symphony Society presentation. "The Sound of Music," though, is presented by the Broadway Series, which is jointly produced by SFX Theatricals, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and Symphony Society, and is also part of its subscription series.
Non-Equity tours usually play smaller markets than Pittsburgh, but they have become a recent tradition in the big Downtown halls at holiday time, when everything sells -- "Annie" (Heinz Hall, last Christmas), "Fiddler on the Roof" (Benedum, Thanksgiving 1998) and "Jesus Christ Superstar" (Heinz Hall, New Year's 1997).
But this is apparently the first time this Broadway Series has included a non-Equity tour in its subscription package. Nothing in the "Sound of Music" advertising indicates this distinction.
Gideon Toeplitz, Symphony Society executive vice president, explained, "We have to put a good season in front of the public. This year, we needed a show to balance the season -- one of those old sweetheart things. ... Equity, non-Equity, we don't always know that [when we book a show]. We've never said we won't book non-Equity, even though [Heinz Hall is] a union house."
Speaking yesterday for SFX, which books subscription seasons into two dozen cities in addition to Pittsburgh, publicist John Barlow said, "When this production of 'The Sound of Music' was chosen to be part of the Pittsburgh series, SFX Theatrical Group believed it to be an Equity production. It had been extremely successful with critics and audiences."
When Troika took over the property and made it nonunion, the show was already scheduled in many cities, so SFX decided to let it stand. But if it is unprecedented for the Pittsburgh Broadway Series to book a nonunion show, Barlow said, "it's still unprecedented," since that wasn't the understanding when SFX booked it.
Although nonunion tours incur far smaller talent costs, the audience usually pays about the same ticket price.
Toeplitz explained that "we are not party to what they [the producers] pay [their talent]. ... We make an overall deal," setting box-office prices according to the costs of the season as a whole rather than of individual shows.
The seven shows in this year's Broadway Series package carry a variety of single ticket price ranges. At $40 to $55, "The Sound of Music" is in the middle; "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cinderella" are higher (top up to $59.50); the other four are roughly similar or marginally lower (low of $37).
The nonunion issue also affects local producers, says Ken Gargaro of Pittsburgh Musical Theater. He pointed out last year that the non-union "Annie" arrived a few months before his own Equity production, which used mostly Pittsburgh actors and charged $15 to $35, with student tickets at half price. "It's hard being a local company working to keep up with its Equity contract," he said, "then to see a non-Equity company come in with the same show."
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