The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which has been busy organizing off-Broadway, has turned its attention to downtown Manhattan’s most storied and prolific producer.
On Wednesday, the management of the Public Theater declined a request by production workers at the 70-year-old institution to voluntarily recognize their petition to unionize under IATSE. In response, a group calling itself “Unionize the Public” posted on Instagram that it will seek an election supervised by a third party.
“I think it will be a landslide,” said Sarala Pool, a former Public Theater production worker who was assistant props supervisor on its 2022 musical Suffs. In an interview last week at the offices of IATSE Local One, which represents stagehands, she described the Public’s firing of 19 percent of its staff last summer as disillusioning — and galvanizing.
“People are really dissatisfied with the way they were treated,” she said. “Some of the people who’d been laid off had worked there for a very long time.”
Unionization represents a potential conundrum for Oskar Eustis, the longtime artistic director of the Public and a self-described Marxist. The ability to collectively bargain should help workers — by increasing their pay, making freelancers eligible for benefits and decreasing turnover, which could improve workplace safety and efficiency. But raising labor costs leaves less money for the Public to further its mission of developing and presenting new musicals and straight plays, including free Shakespeare in Central Park.
That dilemma hasn’t deterred workers elsewhere off-Broadway. The Vineyard Theatre and IATSE “have reached an agreement on a process for voluntary recognition of the union,” said Daniel Little, an IATSE organizer. Last month, all six backstage workers at the long-running off-Broadway musical Titanique voted to be represented by IATSE.
In a recent Atlantic Theater Co. election, 129 of the 130 ballots counted were in favor of unionizing. Though smaller than the Public, the Atlantic has also become an important source of shows that later move to Broadway, including The Band’s Visit and Kimberly Akimbo.
“IATSE arriving at The Atlantic is such a complicated thing,” James Nicola, the former artistic director of New York Theatre Workshop, wrote on Facebook. “On the one hand, I’m glad for the workers to get health insurance. On the other, I fear it will mean fewer, smaller productions, which means fewer jobs.” (Nicola shared the quote with Broadway Journal.)
Jeffrey Solis, a former executive at both the Atlantic and the Vineyard, concurred. “Everyone I’ve spoken to feels the unionization in the non-profit, Off-Broadway arena will only hinder the development of new productions, especially those with difficult subjects or by new writers and those without significant enhancement deals to offset expenses,” Solis said in an email. (Developmental productions at nonprofits are often subsidized, or “enhanced,” by commercial producers aiming for a commercial transfer.)
Producers’ concerns about unionization impeding the industry aren’t new. Paul Libin, who produced on and off-Broadway for six decades, complained in 1973 about Actors’ Equity encroaching off-Broadway. He was quoted in Stephen Langley’s book Producers on Producing that as Actors’ Equity “increased its demands, there has been a substantial decline in off-Broadway activity.”
The Public has been working with unions, including IATSE, for decades, a spokeswoman for the theater company told Broadway Journal on Monday. “We look forward to continuing to engage with them and with their representatives,” she said in an email.
The company, founded by Joseph Papp in 1954, comprises five stages in its East Village complex as well as Joe’s Pub, a popular cabaret space. It has longstanding contracts with Actors’ Equity, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, United Scenic Artists Local 829 and Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. Moreover, the Public already has four positions with Local One. When productions are running, a Local One stagehand is assigned to the Public’s Newman Theater, another works the Anspacher and two are assigned to the Delacorte in Central Park.
Notwithstanding the tens of millions of dollars the Public earned from its role developing the blockbuster Hamilton, the nonprofit company has suffered a post-Covid malaise. Last summer, it cited declining ticket sales and rising expenses for why it cut staff and programming. That included its acclaimed Under the Radar festival, which has since been revived with two dozen partners.
Pool said Eustis’ $1.1 million annual compensation package — which the Public vowed to cut during the pandemic but didn’t — bred resentment. “Maybe if he took a pay cut, a few more people could’ve kept their jobs,” Pool said. “I don’t feel as though those things are not connected.”
The Public spokeswoman didn’t respond when asked about Eustis’ pay and the layoffs. Pool, who now works on Broadway, described the Public as her favorite place to work and said she would’ve stayed had she been able to afford to.
Daniel Little of IATSE estimates that some 200 Public Theater full-time and freelance production workers could be eligible to vote in an election. “The workers will decide whether they want a union or not,” he said.
