CMU School of Drama


Sunday, November 25, 2007

B'way could lose $135M this holiday season

B'way could lose $135M this holiday season - a New York stagehand strike that has darkened the Great White Way for 10 days."

6 comments:

Aaron S said...

That's a lot of money to lose. I have to wonder how much more it costs to employ that extra stagehand in comparison to how much this strike is costing. At what point do the producers lose so much that they would have been better off just giving in to the union's demands. Are they willing to reach that point to win the contract battle on principle, or is it just about the money for producers.

jeannie_yun said...

This would merely be the beginning if the Stagehands and the Producers cannot come to some kinds of agreement soon enough. I hope both sides realize that coming to the consensus would prevent losing more money. It is such a hard time when after days of arguments do not get both of them anywhere.

weandme said...

what i think is very sad are the new shows that are going to be forced to close. for some of the other shows like rent, i am not as sad about because they have definitely had a substantial run. but, i know how dissapointed i would be if i were working on one of those new shows and we were forced to close early.

shupcey said...

With the $135M estimate, how long do they anticipate this strike going? Cuz that's been what I'm most curious about. I guess no one knows, and it'll go till it gets settled, so it could take a while.

To think that the city is losing $2 million a day - it's quite startling, but still quite believable. The one thing I disagree about it when Mayor Bloomberg said "I think what hurts more is our reputation...It's the psychic things rather than the dollars." Maybe it's just because I sympathize with the stagehands, but I don't see why anyone would look down on NY, or Broadway, just because of the strike. We'll just have to see I guess....

Anonymous said...

What i think is interesting is that they say what is more important is the reputation of Broadway which is at stake. What is awful is the fact that Broadway and the theatre industry has tried so hard to bring in the masses however, with the shutting down of broadway, we find ourselves closing off theatre to the general public. Not that I am saying the strike is unwarranted. In fact I think the opposite; however, I find it interesting how they worry about the reputation of broadway in addition to the money. Also what is more so interesting is the fact that shows have the very likely possibility of closing.

Anonymous said...

This estimate is assuming that Broadway would be closed through the remainder of the holiday season, where I think that that fact alone is what is keeping the producers from letting this go on that long. $135M is far too much money to just let the strike go on. I think the strike will end before we reach a loss of this magnitude.