Let's figure out what's wrong with the Actors, and with the Producers, too.
Bottom line, they both need to do whatever they can do to avoid a strike. Bottom line. Period, the end.
It's clear that a strike will do more harm than good. And quite honestly, the financial ramifications of a strike, especially when you factor in the shows which will close, could be almost as bad (if not worse) for the producers than conceding to a few more of Equity's demands.
But the actors need to understand that unless they give a little bit more on the road show department, they won't have road shows to be in.
So close, and yet so far. Makes me want to slap someone. Or maybe that's just the fact that I haven't slapped anyone in a long time...
Although I did want to smack a few people on the airplane to Seattle last week. First off, the kid behind me, who screamed half the time, and spent the time he wasn't screaming fiddling with the latch on the tray table on the seat next to me... where our second problem was sitting: the guy next to me. He was wearing those shorts that are somewhere between swim trunks and shorts -- and he was not of the skinny persuasion, which is fine, but it would have been a whole lot less evil if he somehow had managed to fasten the shorts adequately around his waist so that his ass wasn't totally hanging out each and every time he got up. If he'd have had a cute ass, well, that might have been a different situation, but it was a singularly unattractive hairy ass. Just not the kind of thing you want to be squeezed in next to on the plane.
Speaking of airplanes, has anyone other than me noticed that some years ago, a Boeing 737 used to have a 5 seats across configuration: 2 chairs, aisle, 3 chairs. Now it's 6. 3, aisle, 3. Now, the plane hasn't gotten wider, but the people have. And yet the airlines think it's a good idea to cram more of us into less space? Egads. And should we be concerned about all the extra weight involved? Or can we just pretend that we didn't see anything and just go on with our lives?
Posted by Jon at July 12, 2004 03:12 AM | TrackBacki agree that the actors should give a little, but one of the actors' requests is most reasonable: transparency in the bookkeeping. They're ok with taking pay cuts and instead doing profit sharing. But they always end up getting screwed out of the profit sharing and have no way of seeing what the figures actually are. That seems fair to me.
But I also feel like, if it weren't for the producers, the actors wouldn't have jobs at all. If the actors hate the conditions of these tours, they should produce their own shows.
Posted by: jon collins at July 12, 2004 09:40 AM