www.broadwayworld.com: Just last month, Cleveland Play House announce the cancelation of one of its upcoming shows, I'm Back Now: Returning to Cleveland. The announcement came with little explanation, simply noting, "Sadly, a series of events impacted the community of artists involved with the production and resulted in this difficult outcome. We hope this remarkable play will be produced in the future."
4 comments:
I actually saw a friend’s retweet mentioning the cancellation of the Cleveland Playhouse show but didn’t think much about what it meant. It is sad to hear that an actor was assaulted in that way and not helped in any way. I think every compnay should take these reports seriously and do everything they can to help or end situations involving such controversies. It’s unfortuate to know what lengths as company will take in those crazy stories you to get a chandelier or costume delivered on time in a certain way because the “show must go on” but to then to also know it is not uncommon for assaults, mistreatments, and violations of human decency occur within this industry and very little is done to treat it. I think companies often priotize the show over the people who make up the cast and crew and I hope the victimized actress from the article found the support she deserved. You’d hope a company as big as the CPH would do better about treating it’s actors but unfortunately in this case it seems not.
It’s good to hear that patch is working towards making VFX workers to IATSE. It is unfair that certain categories of artists especially in VFX and video game design are not under union protection or a part of something like IATSE to vouch for their rights. All artists should be protected from unpaid overtime and fast deadlines with harsh consequences because without them we wouldn’t have some of the finest media and entertainment so many people use unwittingly everyday. I think it’s ridiculous to this day that all corners of artistry whether tradition digital theatrical or what have you is still having to protest and fight to form and be protected by unions and treated fairly. I think it’s been clear for a quite a while that the “starving artist” trope is a trope that lives on for a reason. Often artist especially in emerging technologies such as gaming are neglected worker rights and stability because these new technologies have never posed an issue to being proposed as unions because that form of work didn’t previously exist.
Ignore this posted it to wrong article!
It’s very rare that productions will be canceled outright and even rarer that they’ll be canceled without having a very good reason given. When this happens, there is usually something major going on and that was exactly what happened in this instance. It’s devastating to hear that sexual assault would happen in an environment in which artists are supposed to feel safe but honestly, while it’s upsetting, it’s not at all surprising. However, the fact that even after it was reported immediately, the playhouse would do absolutely nothing about it is very disappointing. In our industry, we should be protecting artists as much as we possibly can and supporting them through times of crises which did not happen in this case. I’m very glad to hear that the playwright and the director did step up and shut down the whole production as soon as it was brought to their attention but it should not have come to that.
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