Equity in the News Deadline

Actors’ Equity has condemned President Donald Trump’s “outrageous” proposal to freeze $110 million in the 2021 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Actors’ Equity has temporarily paused its consideration of safety plans for live theater productions in California as the state battles unprecedented infection rates of Covid-19.

A growing chorus of entertainment industry union leaders is condemning Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol building by supporters of President Donald Trump – and the politicians who incited the violence.

Last spring, in the early days of Broadway’s Covid-19 pandemic shutdown, news reports and industry chatter referred to an eventual (and, it seemed, imminent) reopening as if a light switch would be flipped and the marquees of all 41 theaters would light up the Midtown night. Actors had left their dressing rooms full of the usual personal stuff — street clothes, photos, charms — as if they’d soon be back from a long holiday weekend.

As film and TV jobs have migrated from Hollywood to production hubs all across the country, the industry’s reliably Democratic-voting union members could play a key role in the outcome of the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union representing professional actors and stage managers in live theatre, said 720 of its 780 members employed by Walt Disney World have been laid off, part of the sweeping 28,000 staff reduction underway across the company’s U.S. parks business.

Broadway will remain closed through at least May 30, 2021, the Broadway League announced Friday. The four-month extension beyond the most recent January date will force producers hoping for a spring opening to come up with new plans.

Sandra Karas, secretary-treasurer of Actors’ Equity, was surprised Monday morning when she read The New York Times’ article about President Trump’s income taxes – and the $70,000 that he reportedly wrote off as a business expense for hair styling in connection with his TV show The Apprentice. “It made me laugh when I saw it in the paper,” she said. “The first thing I thought was, ‘That’s not deductible.’”

Walt Disney World and Actors’ Equity Association have reached an agreement over COVID-19 testing that will allow actors to return to work at the resort following a two-month stand-off.

Labor leaders from five unions including Actors’ Equity Association today joined together to demand Senate action on the HEROES Act, calling the additional $600 in weekly pandemic unemployment benefits essential for food and shelter.