The Broadway strike
Talk to any of the strikers (or read Newsday’s misleading article, for that matter), and you’d think the debate’s about producers replacing entire orchestras with monkeys trained to push sound cues. A cellist’s picket sign reads “Read my strings: No canned music!” And just about anybody on the performing end of the business says this is what’s at stake. But the actual haggling is over whether to let producers scale orchestras down to 20 (which is what the musicians’ union wants) or 15. Producers currently have to pay 26 musicians for every performance, regardless of whether they play or not (Broadway scores often don’t require that many). No, I don’t think our cultural institutions should be completely subject to market forces. But nothing justifies paying an oboe player $200 a night to read Harry Potter books for three hours. Running up gratuitous costs is not going to help the fortunes of a bleeding industry. The result will be fewer productions, shorter runs, and consequently fewer jobs for anyone who wants to work on Broadway. This reality will be far more deeply felt than whatever elation or short-term gain this self-indulgent strike generates. Check out the NY Times’ balanced take on the issue.
Posted by Scott Reynolds at March 8, 2003 11:50 PM
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