The Working Class Cheers When Actors Organize and Strike

Voted best looking picket line of 1919--Actors' Equity on strike.  The militance of women actors was a major factor in the success of the strike.

Two long time interests of this blog—labor history and the performing arts in America—intersect today.  On August 7, 1919 the Actors’ Equity Association launched a bitter 30 day nationwide strike for recognition and improved working conditions.

The stage had always been a challenging career choice.   Although a handful of stars working in major theaters could make a good living, even become rich, most performers toiled for miserable wages with no pay for rehearsals which could last for weeks before a major show was launched and continue during the duration of a show’s run.  Actors often had to pay for their own costumes and make-up.  Those in traveling shows usually had to pay their own train fare and traveling expenses.

And, of course, there was the basic problem of the ephemeral nature of the jobs—they were hard to come by and fiercely competed for in auditions and if hired an actor worked at the whim of producers and directors.  Labor unionists considered performers almost impossible to organize because of this.

But in the first decades of the 20th Century an already tenuous situation was becoming worse as major producers and theater owners followed the example of production industries and organized themselves into a virtual trust, the Theatrical Syndicate which tended to fix wages at an even lower level for journeyman performers and who could end an actor’s career at the snap of their fingers with a black ball.

In 1910 the National Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a strong union of stage hands was formed and was soon able to wring concessions from producers.

Aging matinee idol Edwin Booth, seen here in 1889, lent his name, prestige, and home to the founding of Actors Equity.

Inspired by this development The Players, a handful of leading actors in New York City began secretly meeting at Edwin Booth’s mansion to discuss organization.  Yes that Edwin Booth, America’s most revered tragedian and brother of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilks Booth.

That led to a meeting held at the Pabst Grand Circle Hotel on May 26, 1913 where Actors’ Equity was founded by 112 professional theater actors.  They drafted the association’s constitution and elected Francis Wilson, then a major star and close friend of Booth, as President. 

Despite the prestige of its founders, Equity grew slowly and had difficulty in improving conditions.  At first a professional organization which included actor/producers like Booth, it could make little headway against the power of the Theater Syndicate.

Following the success of the stage hands, Equity founder Frank Gillmore led a movement to transform the organization into a real labor union.  Elected Executive Secretary in 1919, he led Equity into membership in the American Federation of Labor (AFL) on July 18, 1919.

Actors' Equity strike leaders John Cope, John Stewart, Frank Gillmore, and Francis Wilson lead a New York City march. 

Moving quickly, he secured a pledge from the powerful stage hands union to honor its picket lines and launched the nationwide strike weeks later.  The strike lasted 30 days, spread to eight cities, closed 37 plays, and prevented the opening of 16 others.  Producers and theater owners lost millions of dollars.

During the course of the strike Chorus Equity under the leadership of comedienne and future movie star Marie Dressler was formed and joined the action after the first 5 days.  That prevented producers from trying to put all girl reviews on their stages to keep the theaters open and fill the seats.

Comedy star Marie Dressler, center, formed Chorus Equity which joined the actors on strike preventing producers from mounting all-girl reviews to keep their theaters open.  Broadway star Ethel Barrymore, far right joined their picket line.

Over the course of the strike Equity grew from 3,000 members to more than 14,000, almost all of the working actors in major cities.

The Syndicate, its power permanently broken, had no choice but to recognize the union and sign a five year agreement to improved conditions of employment.  In a tough year for the union movement in general, it was considered a major victory.

The actors knew a thing or two about publicity and he press.  Their well oiled Press Office kept reporters fed with the latest strike news and human interest stories. At right is Ned Sparks who became a celebrated MGM contract player wirh his cigar chomping, sardonic, and deadpan persona in scores of pictures.

Equity went on to a long and progressive history.  It was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and in demanding non-discrimination.  Unlike its cousin the Screen Actors’ Guild under the leadership of Ronald Regan, Equity refused to co-operate with the McCarthy Era blacklist of suspected Reds.  It led lobbying for public funding for the arts which eventually resulted in the creation of the National Endowment of the Arts. It also led the fight against AIDS, which heavily impacted its membership.

The union’s history has been punctuated by strikes, especially a bitter walk out in 1961 that dimmed Broadway lights for 13 days but won the creation of the Equity-League Pension & Health Trust Funds.

In 1952 Chorus Equity merged with the Actors.  Directors and choreographers split from the union and set up their own organization in 1959.

In today’s fractured theater scene with many local and regional theaters, Of Broadway, Off-off Broadway, and non-profit companies, Equity only retains tight control over Broadway productions, touring companies, and a handful of major venues in other cities.  Equity performers are allowed to appear on a limited basis in some non-equity productions, especially top level dinner and regional theater.  Actors working in the lively independent/alternative theater scene, however, are generally poorly paid and sometimes work for nothing.

The current Actors' Equity logo.

This year all actors, Equity members or not, have been devastated by the Coronavirus pandemic that has shut down almost all theatrical productions and has or is threatening to permanently close many local and regional theater companies and venues.  Equity has responded by sponsoring or collaborating with virtual on line programing to raise money for out of work actors and give them a creative outlet.  It is now laying down ground rules for how to safely reopen Broadway theater

When a Prop Go Wrong—A Bad Day at the Globe

A prop cannon firing under the  thatched roof set the straw on fire dooming the Globe Theater.  

Folks who have been involved in theater, amateur or professional, love to swap yarns about various disasters in front of live audiences.  Ask me sometime about when the set fell on my head in the middle of Jules Feiffer’s Little Murders at Shimer College. 

But even the most grizzled theatrical veteran would have a hard time topping what happened to the cast of Henry VIII on June 29, 1613.  During a performance a cannon sparked a fire in the Globe Theater’s thatched roof, burning the theater structure to the ground.  Fortunately no one was seriously injured, although one actor was said to have suffered an indignity to his pants. 

The Globe, of course, was the famous London theater where William Shakespeare had most of his plays produced and where he appeared in many of them as an actor.  Henry VIII is today one of The Bard’s less produced plays, both because of the liberties taken with the well known historical facts of Henry’s reign and because of suspicion that it was either co-authored or heavily tinkered with by another Globe playwright, John Fletcher.   

The Globe was constructed from timbers of an earlier venue known simply as The Theater in 1599.  It was built on leased land and when the lease was up, the landlord claimed the building, which was owned by an association of actors.  To retrieve their property the actors hired a carpenter, Peter Street and joined him in disassembling the building in December of 1598 while the landlord was celebrating Christmas in the country.  The material was hidden until the next summer when it was floated across the Themes and the new theater constructed on marshy ground south of Maiden Lane. 

The only known near contemporary illustration of the Globe theater by Wenceslas Hollar in 1642.

The new building evidently substantially re-created the original, although it may have been enlarged.  The Globe was owned originally by six actors who were shareholders in the theatrical troupe The Lord Chamberlain’s Men.  One of the six was a minority share holder, Will Shakespeare himself.  The building was an open air amphitheater about 100 feet in diameter contained in a building three stories high.  Although described as The Wooden O and portrayed in the only contemporary sketch, by Wenceslas Hollar, archeological evidence now suggests that it may have been a twenty-sided structure. 

Three levels of stadium stile boxes were protected under an over-hanging thatched roof were built on to the interior walls.  Surrounding an apron stage about 43 by 27 feet and raised five feet was a large open area where groundlings paid a penny to stand and watch performances while their betters lounged in the boxes.  As many as 3000 people could be jammed into the theater, which was one of London’s most popular places of amusement. 

The design of the theater was believed to mimic the inn courtyards where traveling theatrical troupes performed in earlier days. 

Shakespeare had retired by the time the second Globe, left, was erected, but his plays remained a staple of the resident company.

Shakespeare himself at about age 50 seems to have retired from active involvement in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men about the time of the fire, and perhaps because of it.  When a second Globe was erected on the foundation of the first in 1614 he seems to be gone, although his plays continued to be revived as the source of most of the troupe’s material.  He died in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616. 

The new Globe continued on until something even more deadly than fire befell it—Puritans.  It was closed by order of the Cromwell government in 1642 and probably razed two years later to make way for tenements. 

Dominic Rowan and Kate Duchene perform as the King and Queen Katherine in Henry VIII at Shakespeare's Globe. This time the place did not burn down.

In 1997 Shakespeare’s Globe, a modern reproduction of the first theater, opened a few yards from the original site and regularly produces plays from the Shakespeare cannon.  Eleven years ago during a cycle of all of the Bard’s history plays Henry III received a rare revival there. 

This time the cannon fired safely.  Everyone was relieved.

The Prairie Radicalism of the Real Wizard of Oz—L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum looking far more prosperous than he ever was.  No matter how much money the Oz books and their stage adaptions made him, he promptly lost the cash in one failed business venture after another.

The 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz remains the one of the most popular films of all time, beloved by every new generation exposed to it.

But however entertaining, it obscures the raging Prairie Populism and open feminism that the creator of the original stories espoused. 

L. Frank Baum, one of America’s the most prolific and enduring children’s authors, was born on May 15, 1856 in Chittenango, New York.  His father had made his fortune in the Pennsylvania oil boom and manufactured lubricants.  His mother was an outspoken feminist.  The family lived comfortably in a large home. 

Frank, one of ten children, was a sickly boy with a heart condition.  Protected from strenuous activity, including usual childhood rough house play, he was tutored at home and spent most of his time reading and playing fantasy games with his siblings.  Although enthralled with the magic of fairy tales, he was repelled by the frightening violence of the Brothers Grimm and by the heavy moralizing.  At an early age he decided that he wanted to create magical stories for modern children that dispensed with the violence, stock characters, and monsters of the European tales and which reflected American attitudes and outlook. 

Baum as a very unhappy military school cadet in 1868.

After an unhappy two year brush with military school, Baum dropped out and decided to make his own way in the world.  He first took up journalism and quickly had some success, becoming a reporter on the New York World and shortly after founding a newspaper in Pennsylvania.  He also took up raising exotic chickens, edited a magazine for poultry farmers, and wrote a book on the Hamburg breed in which he specialized. 

At the age of 25 Baum went to New York to study acting and appeared in several shows.  Because of his family’s wealth Baum was pursued by producers to invest in their shows with promises of good roles.  His life-long interest in the theater brought him repeatedly to bankruptcy.  Baum’s father built him his own theater, or “Opera House” in Richberg, New York where he founded his own company and began writing plays for it. 

The Maid of Aaran was a modest success in 1882 which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in.  He also composed the music.  The songs were integrated into the story, almost unheard of in American musical theater at the time.  While touring with this show, the Richberg theater burned down during a performance of another play, the ominously titled Matches. 

Baum--young actor and playwright, 1881

The same year he married Maude Gage, the daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, one of the leading Suffragists and feminists and close associate of Elizabeth Cady Stanton who Baum adored and who deeply influenced his political and religious thought—he was a consistent advocate of women’s rights and became, like Matilda, a Theosophist.  

With a new family to support, Baum left the theater to try his hand at business.  First he worked as an axle grease salesman for his father, and then in rapid succession he tried and failed at other businesses and occupations changing careers as “other men change their shirts.”  He opened a general merchandise store in Aberdeen, Dakota Territory where his willingness to extend credit to drought strapped local farmers led to failure.  He then returned to journalism as the editor and publisher of a weekly newspaper which, though nominally Republican was a staunch advocate for voting rights for women and was familiar with and sympathetic to emerging Populism.  His mother-in-law lived with his wife and growing family—four children—during this period. 

When the newspaper failed in 1891 the family moved to Chicago where Baum wrote for the Evening Post.  He founded and edited a journal for professional window dressers, published his first book—on breeding Hamburg rabbits, and became a traveling salesman.  Mathilda Gage encouraged Baum to write and publish the tales he was already telling his own children.

 His first effort in 1897, Mother Goose in Prose was a success with illustrations by leading artist Maxwell Parish.  With Parish in demand by leading national magazines, Baum teamed up with artist W.W. Denslow for Father Goose, His Book, which became the bestselling children’s book of 1898.

In 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz made Baum famous.  The characters were symbolic--the Scarecrow stood for embattled farmers, the Tin Man industrial workers, and the Cowardly Lion the working class unaware of its own power and cowed mirage of invincibility of the robber Barron ruling class--the Wizard himself.

 But it was his next book in1900 which really established him—The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  It was a sensation and the public demanded more.  And Baum gave it to them.  Baum collaborated with producer Fred R. Hamlin and composer Paul Tietjens on a “musical extravaganza” based on the book.  It opened in Chicago then on to Broadway for a very successful run.  The show toured the country for ten years. 

Modern critics have recognized the themes of populism in the Oz books and noted his strong female characters, both heroines and villinesses.

Baum returned to Oz in 1904 with the publication of The Marvelous Land of Oz and there after produced a new Oz book almost every year until he died—a total of 16 titles in all, the last published posthumously.  Several times he tried to end the series, but returned to it by popular demand or when one of his business ventures failed again. 

Meanwhile Baum wrote other children’s books under his own name and various nom-de-plumes.  In addition there were numerous short stories, poetry collections, adult novels, and theater pieces, and screen plays.  The output was prodigious. 

Braun moved his family to Hollywood in 1911 and was forced into bankruptcy the following year by the expenses of an odd lecture, film and theater piece called The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays and weak sales of some of his non-Oz books.  He had to sell the rights to many of his earlier works to recover and redoubled production of Oz books. 

But the siren call of the theater was irresistible to Baum.  He joined and wrote most of the material for Harry Marston Haldeman’s group The Uplifters, which also featured Will Rogers.  Baum’s last full scale play was The Tic Toc Man of Oz, which was successfully produced in Los Angeles but could not find a producer in New York. 

His Magesty the Scarecrow of Oz was one of  the most successful of the films written and directed by Baum for his own movie studio.  The earliest version of Wonderful Wizard of Oz came to the screen in 1902 and there was another version in 1910.  After Baum's death comic Larry Semon starred in another version in 1925, all long before the MGM Technicolor musical extravaganza in 1939.

Baum also was interested in motions pictures and in 1914 founded his own company, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company to produce Oz films.  Several were made to critical acclaim, but box office failure.  An attempt to reorient the company to adult audiences as Dramatic Feature Films by Baum’s son Frank Joslyn Baum ended in failure by 1917. 

The failure of his cinema dreams took a toll on Baum’s always fragile health.  On May 5, 1919 he suffered a stroke and died just days short of his 63rd birthday.

When Actors Organize and Strike the Working Class Applauds

Voted best looking picket line of 1919--Actors Equity on strike.

Two long time interests of this blog—labor history and the performing arts in America—intersect today.  On August 7, 1919 the Actors’ Equity Association launched a bitter 30 day nationwide strike for recognition and improved working conditions.

The stage had always been a challenging career choice.   Although a handful of stars working in major theaters could make a good living, even become rich, most performers toiled for miserable wages with no pay for rehearsals which could last for weeks before a major show was launched and continue during the duration of a show’s run.  They often had to pay for their own costumes and make-up.  Those in traveling shows usually had to pay their own train fare and traveling expenses.

And, of course, there was the basic problem of the ephemeral nature of the jobs—they were hard to come by and fiercely competed for in auditions and if hired an actor worked at the whim of producers and directors.  Labor unionists considered performers almost impossible to organize because of this.

But in the first decades of the 20th Century an already tenuous situation was becoming worse as major producers and theater owners followed the example of production industries and organized themselves into a virtual trust, the Theatrical Syndicate which tended to fix wages at an even lower level for journeyman performers and who could end an actor’s career at the snap of their fingers with a black ball.

In 1910 the National Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a strong union of stage hands was formed and was soon able to wring concessions from producers.

Aging matinee idol Edwin Booth, seen here in 1889, lent his name, prestige, and home to the founding of Actors Equity.

Inspired by this development The Players, a handful of leading actors in New York City began secretly meeting at Edwin Booth’s mansion to discuss organization.  Yes that Edwin Booth, America’s most revered tragedian and brother of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth.

That led to a meeting held at the Pabst Grand Circle Hotel on May 26, 1913 where Actors’ Equity was founded by 112 professional theater actors.  They drafted the association’s constitution and elected Francis Wilson, then a major star and close friend of Booth, as President. 

Despite the prestige of its founders, Equity grew slowly and had difficulty in improving conditions.  At first a professional organization which included actor/producers like Booth, it could make little headway against the power of the Theater Syndicate.

Following the success of the stage hands, Equity founder Frank Gillmore led a movement to transform the organization into a real labor union.  Elected Executive Secretary in 1919, he led Equity into membership in the American Federation of Labor (AFL) on July 18, 1919.

Actors Equity strike leaders John Cope, John Stewart, Frank Gillmore, and Francis Wilson lead a New York City march.

Moving quickly, he secured a pledge from the powerful stage hands union to honor its picket lines and launched the nationwide strike weeks later.  The strike lasted 30 days, spread to eight cities, closed 37 plays, and prevented the opening of 16 others.  Producers and theater owners lost millions of dollars.

During the course of the strike Chorus Equity under the leadership of comedienne and future movie star Marie Dressler was formed and joined the action after the first 5 days.  That prevented producers from trying to put all girl reviews on their stages to keep the theaters open and fill the seats.

Comedy star Marie Dressler, center, formed Chorus Equity which joined the actors on strike preventing producers from mounting all-girl reviews to keep their theaters open.  Broadway star Ethel Barrymore, far right joined their picket line.

Over the course of the strike Equity grew from 3,000 members to more than 14,000, almost all of the working actors in major cities.

The Syndicate, its power permanently broken, had no choice but to recognize the union and sign a five year agreement to improved conditions of employment.  In a tough year for the union movement in general, it was considered a major victory.

The actors knew a thing or two about publicity and he press.  Their well oiled Press Office kept reporters fed with the latest strike news and human interest stories. 

Equity went on to a long and progressive history.  It was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and in demanding non-discrimination.  Unlike its cousin the Screen Actors’ Guild under the leadership of Ronald Regan, Equity refused to co-operate with the McCarthy Era blacklist of suspected Reds.  It led lobbying for public funding from the arts which eventually resulted in the creation of the National Endowment of the Arts. It also led the fight against AIDS, which heavily impacted its membership.

The union’s history has been punctuated by strikes, especially a bitter walk out in 1961 that dimmed Broadway lights for 13 days but won the creation of the Equity-League Pension & Health Trust Funds.

In 1952 Chorus Equity merged with the Actors.  Directors and choreographers split from the union and set up their own organization in 1959.

In today’s fractured theater scene with many local and regional theaters, Of Broadway, Off-off Broadway, and non-profit companies, Equity only retains tight control over Broadway productions, touring companies, and a handful of major venues in other cities.  Equity performers are allowed to appear on a limited basis in some non-equity productions, especially top level dinner theater and regional theater.  Actors working in the lively independent theater scene, however, are generally poorly paid and often work for nothing.