Guest Blogpost

posted by The Vidiot @ 4:22 PM Permalink

An interesting viewpoint on the strike and a few other things I didn't feel like editing out. (He prefers to remain anonymous):

Between the strike in NY and the strike on the west coast, main-stream entertainment has come to a crawl. Nature knoweth no wrath like a tourist with orchestra tickets to The Little Mermaid facing a dark theater.

One visiting teacher with 44 kids on her hands looked around for an open show and took them to Die Mommie Die. Either we've got a real progressive chaperone here or one who doesn't know drag from shinola. (Postscript: The 44 kids loved it.)

If she wanted a B'way show, she could've taken them to The Ritz. That's open. In more ways than one.

The real stickler here is that there are a LOT of actors who'd like to picket the picketers, but Equity members aren't allowed to protest or cross the lines. Meanwhile the Equity website says: "We deplore the strike and the harm it does to the City, the industry, and theatre-going public. Indeed ... to all the actors, musicians and other talented people who make Broadway magical."

But Equity expects its members to respect the other unions so that the other unions will respect Equity's picket line next time 'round.

Fun fun fun.

A friend e-mailed me he had tickets for Is He Dead for Saturday night. Earlier in the week he saw Seafarer, Farnsworth, and Rock 'N' Roll. Re: Rock 'N' Roll, he said it took him a while to really get into the play. He wasn't sure if it was the script itself or "if it was because of the Wednesday matinee audience that was so unruly. At intermission, I spoke with an usher who told me, she had worked at that theater for 34 years and 'never saw a poorer behaving audience.' And that is quite a statement."

Is Rock 'N' Roll actually attracting rock 'n' roll audiences? If so, they evidently don't know what a play is.

Any strike in the entertainment field is scary business. Just when one finally gets real money coming in ...

I was watching "Inside Washington" on PBS Friday night and the two snotty conservative pundits went on and on and on about "Why is everybody so scared right now? The economy's in GREAT shape! Unemployment is low, there's no recession ..." and this, I kid you not, is a direct quote: "... sure there's a little war going on, sure 3,000 have been killed, but that's tiny compared to other wars. What's everybody so unhappy about?"

For fiscal conservatives, the idea of spending hundreds of billions on a "little war" doesn't seem to unnerve them. Although they're thrilled Bush vetoed children's health insurance 'cause 30 billion was simply too much.

To quote John Stuart Mill:
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." "

Labels: broadway, nyc, unions, wga strike