CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Toronto IATSE Calls Out Blue Man Group

Backstage: "A Canadian arm of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees on Monday urged the Blue Man Group to recognize stage hands at its controversial Toronto production."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is amazing how poweful the unions are. It is a little distrubing that if a company does not want to become apart of the union, that they can be forced out. I guess my question is, do the stagehands at the blue man groups theater want to join the union, or is the union upset that the stage hands are not union?

Anonymous said...

While I understand the involvement with IATSE, the correlation between Blue Man Group and Equity confuses me somewhat. They seem to walk the line between theatre and live performance (like a concert), and I would say they lean more towards the concert. If anything, they should be dealing with AGMA, I would think. If Blue Man Group is being pushed towards Equity, shouldn't things like Cirque be under pressure as well?

Anonymous said...

This has been a problem in Pittsburgh, the Union things. I agree with Julie that its amazing the way that companies can be bullied into joining the union. I don't really understand the problem here though. This show is really a mixture of all kinds of art forms and to require all of the theatre unions to be a part seems odd.

- Jen Owen