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MARIST STUDENTS’ BROADWAY DREAMS SHATTERED BY STAGEHANDS STRIKE
By AMY WHEELER
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., Nov. 19 --- When Bobby Mandetta received a phone call early last Sunday morning, his plans for the day were changed for him by the striking stagehands on Broadway. Instead of spending the day laughing at the funny lyrics to the songs from Spamalot, Mandetta, would be sleeping in and hanging around his dorm all day.
On November 10, the members of Local One, the Broadway stagehands union, went on strike after almost four months of unsuccessful contract disputes. Stagehands from more than two dozen plays walked off the job and started picketing. Picketers handed out fliers that read in part, “Cuts in our jobs and wages will never result in a cut in ticket prices to benefit the public, but only an increase in the profits for producers,” NYTimes.com reported on November 11, 2007.
Mandetta, a Marist College freshman, was disappointed by the effect this event had on him and the rest of the Marist students planning to attend the Student Programming Council’s discounted trip to New York City. “I wanted to see [Spamalot] really, really bad,” he explained.
However, the phone call from the director of Student Activities, Bob Lynch, alerting him to the trip cancellation did not come as much of a surprise to Mandetta.
“I was told before that supposedly a strike was to occur the next day,” he said.
According to Joe Gentile, a junior Marist student who had also been planning to see Spamalot, when Lynch called he explained that the “trip had been cancelled, alluded to the [stagehands’] strike, and told me that my ticket would be refunded.”
Lynch said that he had received this news at 6 a.m. on Sunday, when he found out on the news that the stagehands were going to continue the strike. He immediately came to school to start notifying the students and was successful in getting in touch with each of the students who had bought tickets to the show.
“A lot of the students we called didn’t know the strike was even happening,” Lynch said.
Friday, a similar phone call went out alerting the Marist students who had purchased tickets for the Rent trip on Sunday, November 19 that their trip was also cancelled due to the stagehands’ strike.
“The decision was made in a hotel room on Broadway,” Lynch said. “We had no control. We weren’t a part of it, but it still effects us.”
The fact that the strike led to Friday’s cancelling of both Saturday and Sunday’s performances worried Lynch.
“The businesses around Broadway that depend on it are suffering,” he said. “I’m concerned about their well-being.” Lynch talked of the Broadway strikes having a “rippling effect” with a “tough economic impact”.
Lynch speculated that the timing of the strike, at the beginning of one of Broadway’s busiest seasons, was not purely coincidental.
“They would choose the most hurtful time to make their point,” Lynch said.
The beginning of the strike also came an hour before the opening of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical, which, according to a NYTimes.com article written by Robert D. McFadden, left many children in tears when they arrived at the theater only to find the show had been cancelled. Because of this, Lynch felt the timing the stagehands chose would cause the “most damage”.
According to livebroadway.com, the November 14, 2007 statement from the League of American Theatres and Producers and Local One said,"Talks have been scheduled between Local One and The League of American Theaters and Producers beginning this weekend, at an undisclosed place and time. No interviews or comment from either organization will be issued until further notice.”
Lynch believes the producers are responsible. He said he thinks they should have worked on the contract earlier, before it became such a problem.
However, he also said, “I feel bad for both parties. They seem to want to work it out.”
According to NYTimes.com, this is the second strike on Broadway in less than five years. The first was the four-day musicians’ walkout in 2003. City tourism officials said that this strike cost the city about $7 million a day.
Julia Mazzeo, a sophomore who had planned on seeing Rent said, “I pretty much assumed it was going to be cancelled because there was nothing saying otherwise on the news. I felt a little bit disappointed, but I had been expecting it.”
Another sophomore, Cindy Franch agreed saying, “I was disappointed, but not surprised because I knew Broadway was on strike.”
Katy Kirkendall, a senior, who had never seen Rent before, had planned to go on the trip.
“I'm a senior, and now I'm afraid that I won't be able to get to see it on a Marist trip, because I'm not sure they will do a trip to see that play in the spring, or if they do, if I will be able to go on that particular day,” she said.
According to npr.org, both parties hope to settle the disputes before Thanksgiving. Lynch commented, “I’m hoping it will come to a conclusion soon. If it continues, some shows might end up having to close because there is no revenue. That thought sends a shiver up my spine.”
However, he assures Marist students that this will not be the end of their $25 trips to Broadway.
“We’re not going to stop the trips,” Lynch said. “Students love these trips. We’re going to do our best to reach out to them. I feel bad for those kids.”
Lynch said that College Activities will definitely be looking to revisit the two trips, and the students who were supposed to go originally will be offered the tickets again.