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The Latest Local Assaults on Dissent and Discussion: By AEA and CSULB
By Paul Birchall
The Phantom Meeting
So, I’ll just ask: Can you tell what they’re up to?
If you have been following the minutiae of the conflict between Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and the representatives of the 99-seat theater community, you’ll have become aware of a few setbacks to “communication” and “transparency” in recent days.
On August 30th (as reported by the LA STAGE Alliance website This Stage), the Pro99 Plaintiffs complaint to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging unfair practices by the union, was dismissed without explanation at the regional level. This isn’t the best news for the Pro99 side, though the decision has already been appealed at the national level, where the complainants believe it will receive a fairer hearing. It does, however, suggest that both sides of this issue have a long, protracted war on their hands, with the feud being measured battle by battle. The NLRB filing is also a complaint with a different authority from that of the lawsuit (Asner, et al Vs. Actors’ Equity Association) — filed by actors (and others) against the stage actors’ union. The NLRB filing is related to the lawsuit, of course, but concentrates on more specific alleged breaches. Meanwhile, the lawsuit goes on.
And then, as reported by Footlights, on September 2, the union filed its rebuttal to the Pro-99 Plaintiffs, through a Motion to Dismiss. It’s a very long document, with more than a couple of pages dedicated to referencing prior labor lawsuits. It makes for quite a slogging read, at least for non-attorney-types, but it is useful in telling us the thought processes underlying AEA’s case against the 99-Seat Plan, which AEA is trying to formulate as an internal union matter that requires no outside adjudication.
Meanwhile, in early September, AEA announced plans for a huge national meeting to take place on September 12 at the Sportsman Lodge in Studio City (Los Angeles), California. This meeting was required as part of the union’s constitution and bylaws. In short, union member Leo Marks had proposed amendments to bylaws that would potentially improve communication among members and transparency by the union. The union’s National Council vetoed Marks’s proposals, which is where the constitution and by-laws kicked in, i.e. the requirement of a national meeting to discuss the amendments with the entire membership, and in which the membership could vote to overturn the Council veto, and thereby adopt Marks’s amendments.
The Pro99 and LA Theater Network Facebook pages had been replete with calls to galvanize the membership and to show up at the meeting en masse so as to make their opinion known. Across social media, there were accounts of folks planning to cancel or “book out” of professional auditions so they could attend the meeting.
Well, now, after several weeks during which members rearranged their schedules to attend, the union abruptly postponed the meeting. According to a letter, posted on the AEA website, from Executive Director Mary McColl, the cancellation is due to members in different cities not receiving in time the e-mails about the meeting (the national meeting was to be webcast from locations around the country).
It seems truly passive-aggressive, after so many performers adjusted their schedules to attend a long-announced meeting, to then jerk the carpet out from under them. It smacks of fear: Is the Union so afraid of dissent that they want to reschedule a national meeting to a time when it will probably be more difficult for local members to attend? Is there credence to the union’s “We didn’t follow procedure to the letter” argument? Maybe so, but evidently, they never did. So why the concern here? Why now? If you haven’t already noticed, these are rhetorical questions.
I also can’t help but find it unprofessional — sloppy, not inclusive – and makes it even more obvious that the union is once again trying to stack the deck to suppress dissent. This dovetails with the union’s overall campaign to wage a war of attrition, or call it a war of exhaustion – a series of baits and switches aimed to compel the Pro99 side to simply surrender.
Censorship at Cal Stage, Long Beach
At Cal State Long Beach, Michele Roberge, artistic director of the campus-administered Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts, has resigned from the university system following a conflict with the administration over the cancelling of performances by a visiting comedy group. The story, detailed here at O.C Weekly, almost reads like a parody of the discussion of on-campus “trigger warnings” and “safe places” that have been simmering about the media lately.
The show itself, a satirical work entitled N*gger, W*tback, Ch*ink, was actually performed at the same campus venue last year. It attempts to indict and explode ethnic stereotypes through mockery, until all that’s left of them is rubble. The cast features three performers, one an African-American, one a Latino, and one an Asian – and during their visit last year, their residency included master classes as well as meetings with students and faculty to discuss diversity and stereotypes.
During their previous residency, though, some groups, most notably the NAACP, protested the show’s title. At the time, University President Jane Close Conoley put out a message stating that the “school’s mission included presenting works like this.”
This year, however, Conoley opted to shut down the show’s remount. A University spokesperson noted, “Members of the campus community [this year] voiced concerns that the performance wasn’t achieving the goal of constructing a dialogue about racial relations… Not to disparage the performers, but there were questions of the educational value of the performance, so the president asked the Carpenter team to withdraw the performance.”
The performers will be compensated, and audience members will have their tickets to the show refunded. About her decision to resign, Roberge, a 14 year veteran of the Carpenter Center, noted, “I just couldn’t come to work every day to work at a place that condones censorship. The show is targeted for university audiences and it has won awards for the work it has done in (promoting) positive race relations, which is something I think we need a little more of these days.”
A statement from the show’s producers offers words of praise for Roberge. “We know that giving a platform to strong voices is what drove Executive Director Michelle Roberge to book us for a return engagement at the Carpenter Center, and were devastated to hear of her decision to leave the position following our show cancellation,” the producers wrote. “We cannot ignore, however, that this occurrence also stands as critical juncture in the path of free speech on the campus of a public educational institution in perhaps our most liberal state. The same act of censorship that today may seem to protect a community may be used next time as justification to silence a community in desperate need of a voice.”
This controversy comes at an interesting time, as the concept of censorship on campus and the maintenance of “safe places” versus the creation of opportunities to debate and discuss topics, is suddenly everywhere.
There is talk of the show’s remounting at Cerritos College, where perhaps, unlike at CSULB, the administration appreciates the value of satire as a means to challenge long-held precepts – which is also among the purposes of higher education, or used to be.
Load ‘Em In!
On a lighter note, a week or two ago, I attended a lovely performance of Laurel Wetzork’s fascinating drama, Blueprint for Paradise at the Hudson Theatre. It was set in Los Angeles during the year leading up to the bombing of Pear Harbor, and it concerned a deluded family (apparently based on a true story) who started to construct a gigantic compound for the Nazis on their property. The show provided a clever dramatization of a fascinating historical footnote: Who knew that Hitler nearly had a mansion not far from Griffith Park?
But, aside from the play itself, an element that intrigued me was that when we checked in at the box office, as tickets, we were given cardboard passes with a number on it. And, when the time came to head into the theater, we were called by group number – just like we were boarding an airplane. It was an entire re-envisioning of the seating system.
I had never seen a system set up like it, and, although I can understand why folks would find it irritating to be grouped in sections, I also note that there was no rush to the door – it made sense to “load in” the audience in the front sections first, and then settle the others in the rear sections. The ushers were able to offer discrete seating service, since everyone in their group was in the same area.
I am not suggesting that all theaters switch to boarding us like we are boarding an airplane – and Lord help us if they start replacing theater chairs with economy class airplane seats. But if this is an eye towards crowd control, how optimistic it is that a theater imagines there’s going to be crowd to control.
