Equity in the News Washington Post

Taking a rare sidestep from neutrality, the union representing more than 51,000 stage actors and managers across the United States announced Monday its endorsement of the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris.

A critical test of the entertainment economy’s reopening plans is set to take place as Disney begins allowing visitors to return to its Florida locations.

With its entire membership of 51,000 professional actors and stage managers out of work, Actors’ Equity Association on Tuesday announced the health and safety guidelines it expects theaters to follow before it will authorize its members to return to the stage.

Actor Evan Casey was two weeks into the run of “The Amateurs” at Olney Theatre Center — a play set during a 14th-century plague — when the Maryland venue closed because of coronavirus concerns. His actress wife, Tracy Lynn Olivera, was deep into her duties as assistant director of “Guys and Dolls,” the spring production at Ford’s Theatre, when that musical was shut down. It has been rescheduled for next spring.

NEW YORK — Every weekday at 3 p.m., leaders from across one of the world's great cities for the arts join a conference call to talk about an ever-expanding catastrophe. Made up of organizations as grand as Carnegie Hall and as small as Queens Theatre, the Cultural Institutions Group discusses everything from staff furloughs to now-vacant spaces that could be lent to hospitals overburdened by the novel coronavirus.