Cats scratched out 18 years on Broadway, but the longest running show on the Great White Way may actually be the labor-management follies.
Much like a play which is more or less the same from night to night, over the decades the issues theatrical unions and management have locked bullhorns over are now so familiar that much of the audience is able to sing along.
Take the current stagehand strike, which this week has left countless tourists searching for other ways to spend $400 for a night's entertainment.
According to Campbell Robertson's front page story Sunday on the strike,
The dispute has largely been over the rules in the contract that govern how many stagehands must be called for work, how long they work, and what kind of tasks they can perform.
Compare that to the same union's demand 81 years earlier,
in the new demands the union requires that nine men be employed for a production with one set of scenery, such as "Craig's Wife," where three men are now used.
Although the 1926 strike was averted, the similarities are (pun intended) striking:
August 19th, 1926
A strike of the stagehands in New York's legitimate theatres loomed as a possibility yesterday when it became known that the Theatrical Protective Union, Local No. 1, had made demands for wage increases for stage carpenters, electricians, property men and flymen which according to the theatre owners and managers, would mean an additional yearly expense of $20,000 to $25,000 for each house.
The increeases asked by the stagehands average about 40 per cent in all departments, although in some instances they run much higher. Under the proposed scale stage carpenters who are now paid $65 a week would receive $85 for a six-day week, with similar increases all along the line.
Local One has been quite effective over the years. The $65 a week salary from 1926, adjusted for inflation would be $724 today. However, stagehands currently earn anywhere between $1,225 and $1,600 a week.
In 1919, in the midst of an actor's strike, many stagehands did walk off the job:
HIPPODROME CLOSED BY STRIKE OF STAGEHANDS
August 29th, 1919
Four hundred and twelve Hippodrome stagehands went on strike last night before the evening performance, and nearly six thousand persons were turned away from the theatre at curtain time. The new Hippodrome show, "Happy Days," opened for the season last Saturday night, and in its few days of operation had been holding a capacity audience at every performance.
Through the years, one advantage of theater strikes is they tend to be more entertaining than your average picketers.
From 2007:
Many members of the other Broadway unions, including Actors’ Equity Association and Local 802, the musicians’ union, hit the sidewalks in support of Local One; a tuba player and a trombonist played “Solidarity Forever” in front of the darkened Ambassador Theater.
From 1919:
Though the stagefolk themselves, by their close presence in such large numbers, were the chief attraction, there were many entertainment features to amuse the great crowds who streamed into the Astor from early evening.
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