Diversity, Ecdysiasts, and Inclusion
Actors Equity Association Makes Strippers Legit
In Paris, I headlined the follies
Billed as doll of all the dollies
Admired by the great Stravinsky
But my greatest achievement
At the height of my career
Was the time I starred for...Minsky
You're looking at a former stripper
But before I unzip one zipper
I want it known I was quite the artiste
But, the intellectual kind…
—”Zip,” lyrics by Lorenz Hart
In this devoted cinephile’s opinion, the most quotable screenplay of all time is Joe Mankiewicz’s wickedly witty All About Eve, the classic saga of theatrical backstage backstabbing, and a legendary camp masterpiece. Toward the beginning of the film, Eve Harrington, aspiring actress and master stalker, has insinuated herself into the dressing room of her idol, vainglorious Broadway star Margo Channing. At one point, she’s left alone with Margo’s boyfriend, director Bill Sampson, who’s about to fly to Hollywood to make his first movie. Eve, a theatre snob, questions him as to why he’s squandering his genius on the movies. Bristling, Bill goes off on young Eve:
The theatre! The theatre! What book of rules says the theatre exists only within some ugly buildings crowded into one square mile of New York City? Or London? Paris, or Vienna? Listen, Junior, and learn. Do you wanna know what the theatre is? A flea circus. Also opera. Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances,“Punch and Judy,” a one-man band: all theatre. Wherever there's magic and make-believe and an audience, there's theatre. Donald Duck. Ibsen and “The Lone Ranger.” Sarah Bernhardt and Poodles Hanneford. Lunt and Fontanne, Betty Grable. Rex the Wild Horse, Eleonora Duse: all theatre. You don't understand them all. You don't like them all. Why should you? The theatre's for everybody, you included—but not exclusively. So, don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your theatre, but it's theatre for somebody, somewhere.
Eve’s implication that Mr. Sampson’s “selling out” to the movies invokes this defensive rant, but he makes a great point. A stage, an audience, a performance. The basics for the making of theatre. But are all live performances theatre? Well, recently, one type of live performance has been elevated by the theatre: with the unionizing of a topless club in LA, making strippers members of Actor’s Equity Association, the union of professional theatre actors and stage managers.
It’s been a while since I wrote about the shifting priorities and agendas at my union. I did a three part series in reaction to Equity’s DEI-mandated Best Practices for Inclusive Theatre Workplaces training, which regurgitates all the talking points of the poisonous DiAngelo/Kendi antiracist ideology. If this is our “best,” then AEA needs to do a whole lot better.
This seems unlikely, since Actor’s Equity currently appears to be less interested in theatre workplaces and more invested in other, very different sorts of workplaces. A quick scan of the Press Releases page on the union’s website gives one a snapshot of the priorities that President Kate Shindle and her team are pursuing. The national labor union for theatre actors and stage managers has become a political lobbying organization. Equity leadership has created a PAC; publicly endorses candidates in mayoral races, and recently endorsed President Biden and VP Kamala Harris for reelection. While AEA successfully negotiated a contentious Broadway touring contract recently, and ratified a new agreement with the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), they’ve also been union organizing in venues fairly far flung from the professional theatre. Some of these efforts unquestionably benefit actors and stage managers: like Drunk Shakespeare, which invites audiences to a pub type venue to enjoy the comedy of improv actors delivering riffs on the Bard whilst getting steadily hammered. AEA has negotiated contracts with the Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Phoenix productions of the franchise. In Los Angeles, lecturers who narrate the planetarium shows at the Griffith Observatory are unionizing in affiliation with AEA.
Clearly, Bill Sampson’s “theatre for somebody, somewhere” philosophy has been taken up with gusto by Actor’s Equity. And now, the union has elevated the art of strippers and topless dancers to the level of theatre—with its efforts to unionize gentlemen’s clubs across the nation. The dancers of The Star Garden in West Hollywood, fed up with dangerous and exploitative working conditions, began a fifteen month campaign to unionize the club, and, via the advocacy of Actor’s Equity’s lawyers with the National Labor Relations Board, negotiated an agreement. Kate Shindle, in the AEA press release from May of this year: “I’m not sure that the enormity of what these workers have accomplished has entirely sunk in yet. Their passion and commitment to unionizing this club has shown a global audience that everybody who wants a union deserves a union, and that safety and fairness are fundamental workers’ rights.”
This victory is already inspiring similar unionizing efforts across the country. In Portland, the dancers at the Magic Tavern, on strike since April, announced last month their intention to form a union, with Actor’s Equity as their bargaining reps. Daphne, a dancer at the club, is quoted in the AEA press release: “We love our jobs, and we're good at what we do. Sex work is work, and as workers we deserve to be treated with respect.”
Of course they do. But here’s my question. While I agree with Ms. Shindle that “everybody who wants a union deserves a union,” why is Actor’s Equity Association the union of choice for strippers? We have a sister union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, which has long represented cabaret, nightclub and casino show performers, theme park and circus performers, skaters, stand-up comics. It seems to me that exotic dancers would be a better fit at AGVA. I’ve yet to ascertain why, then, strippers are working under the theatre union?
Now, I can hear you from here:
What’s wrong with that?? Why are you being so elitist? What makes you so special as a theatre actor that you’d exclude hardworking topless dancers??
That’s not the point. The professional theatre in America was hard hit by covid lockdowns. We were at nearly 100% unemployment for over two years. The union was unable to maintain our health plan without making big concessions to the health trust fund, resulting in the loss of benefits for thousands of members. The industry is still limping back, and in any given week, only 6% of members are employed under a union contract.
Why are Kate Shindle and Equity leadership devoting so much time, effort and resources to unionizing gentlemen’s clubs, and political lobbying, while professional actors and stage managers are struggling to find employment and maintain their pension and health benefits? There’s more emphasis, and energy spent, on policing DEI policies in theatre workplaces than on creating more theatre workplaces, and populating them with union actors and stage managers, while collaborating with producers to develop new audiences for the work. Actor’s Equity’s policies often undermine American theatre: dismantling the repertoire; politicizing the theatre-going experience for patrons; dictating creative choices and casting decisions by imposing social justice ideology.
Actor’s Equity has been adamant, in its communiques to members, that the PAC is not financed using member dues. It seems to me that the political lobbying and union organizing that President Kate Shindle and her staff are pursuing also fall outside the purview of a professional theatre union, with a membership that is sorely hurting. They’ve even started the application process to have the union’s name changed. To what? We don’t know; but clearly, Actor’s Equity Association is morphing into something other than what this thirty-three year veteran member thought it was.
A couple months ago, while the new agreement with LORT (the contract under which I, as an itinerant actor, have worked the most) was being negotiated, an email went out to AEA members from elected councillor, Jeffrey Omura. Mr. Omura was questioning why professional regional theatres, most of them non-profits, weren’t seeking out new sources of funding:
After our country’s social awakening during the pandemic, many large charitable foundations have re-oriented their giving from the arts to social justice causes…THE ARTS IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE CAUSE. Theater can play a transformational role in people’s lives. If a theater has a milquetoast mission statement about putting on plays and musicals, then I can understand why socially minded donors may be looking to support other causes.
I felt moved to send a response:
I was a bit uneasy with some of the language in your dispatch and wondered if you'd clarify. The first is your characterization of "milquetoast mission statements." I'm concerned that AEA representatives at the table with LORT producers are denigrating venues that prioritize entertaining their audiences. It's really okay to do plays and musicals that provide a fun and diverting experience. In a time of fraught socio-cultural division everywhere in media, an upbeat musical might be just the relief people need right now.
Mr. Omura’s curt response contained a disclaimer that the email represented his personal views and not the union’s—then, he doubled down on his assertion that theatres would benefit from expressing mission statements of the social justice variety.
Now, look. I have no anti-stripper bias. One of my closest friends in college financed her education stripping, and I saw the toll it took on her—the workplace violence, the sexual harassment, the exploitation, the drug and alcohol abuse. I’m not saying that these hardworking people, who walk the line between performance and sex work, shouldn’t have safe workplaces and fair wages. One of Actor’s Equity’s most popular and successful fundraisers for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is the annual Broadway Bares, in which dancers from Broadway take it all off in a provocative burlesque extravaganza. There’s no doubt that the work of stripping requires fitness and finesse. But isn’t it variety performance, rather than theatre?
AEA President Kate Shindle has been pushing a Woke agenda for years, starting with small changes and new policies. One of these early efforts is worth citing here, just for the irony.
Another of BC/EFA’s successful annual fundraisers, now called The Red Bucket Follies (for the red buckets cast members carry to collect audience donations during the annual Broadway Cares fund drive), was previously known as The Gypsy of the Year Competition. “Gypsy” was the name Broadway dancers, the hardest working folks in show business, gave themselves as a badge of pride and solidarity. It was a sign of having “made it” to be called a Broadway “gypsy,” and even mega stars, like legend Chita Rivera, referred to herself proudly as a gypsy.
Ms. Shindle started a push to change the name of the BC/EFA fundraiser for reasons of racial sensitivity. “Gypsy” was, according to the union’s official line, as racist as the “N” word to Romani people, and if only one person was offended by the “slur” it must be changed. Never mind the protests of members, pointing out that words have multiple meanings; never mind that the largest Romani organization is the National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups. Never mind that no Romani member of AEA, that I’m aware of, protested the use of the word. It just had to be changed. As we know, changing words and terms is one of the core tactics of social justice warriors, and so…the name of the fundraiser was changed. It continues to do the good work it’s been doing for years, helping to raise awareness, and funds for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The irony? I find it rather funny that Ms. Shindle, who was so adamant about banishing the word “gypsy,” has become the Norma Rae of exotic dancers. Who was the greatest ecdysiast of all time? Gypsy Rose Lee. And the eponymous classic musical about her life, Gypsy, continues to be revived annually, enjoying a permanent place in the repertoire. Perhaps now that strippers have been made legit, the name of their most famous exponent, Miss Gypsy, can be spoken again with pride within the community of the theatre.
It’s not what you do. It’s the way you do it—stripping, or writing, or talking…or just breathing. Do it with an air, and never admit you’re scared.
—Gypsy Rose Lee