Equity in the News New York Times

The shutdown has touched New York in its heart — and its wallet.

The venues, all small nonprofits in New England, will be permitted by Actors’ Equity to put on work with union actors.

The show will be filmed in the empty Broadway theater where it had been playing in previews, and still plans to open in May 2021.

But there will not be an industry to save unless attention is paid to the people who make theater possible: actors, stage managers, stagehands, musicians and more.

Theaters in the Berkshires are planning live shows, “Godspell” and “Harry Clarke,” with limited audiences and virus-related protocols in place. One will be indoors, and one outdoors.

Actors’ Equity Association, which represents 51,000 theater performers and stage managers, lays out guidelines aimed to keep its members safe.

Broadway producers have agreed to pay hundreds of actors, musicians, stagehands and others for the first few weeks of the industry shutdown, and to cover their health insurance for at least a month.

In a groundbreaking agreement Friday, the commercial producers who finance Broadway’s big hits have agreed to give a percentage of profits to performers who help develop successful shows.

The theater actors’ union said on Monday that it was barring its members from taking part in developmental work on Broadway shows while it demands a new contract that includes some profit-sharing.

Actors' Equity, a national labor union, and the Broadway League, a trade association representing producers, are at odds over the issue two years after public pressure from the original cast of “Hamilton” prompted that blockbuster show’s producers to agree to a new formula for distributing its proceeds.