Ripples across the Pond

21 December 2007



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US Writers’ Strike Hits London Theatre

This week, most of the late night line up of TV shows announced they would be back in production in early January, without the striking writers if need be. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien are going back to work because their non-writing workers are suffering. So who’s going to bail out the London Theatres that, believe it or not, are having trouble because the Writers’ Guild of America has downed pencils?

The news from the London stage is that the strike is screwing up casting efforts. For example, Joyce Nettles is a top drawer producer, and she’s got the Almeida Theatre in Islington lined up for a production of Rupert Goold’s “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.” Mr. Goold is as good a playwright as Britain has, and the play should have actors begging to get a role. Instead, it seems the roles are going begging.

Ms. Nettles explained to The Times, “Nobody can commit to 2008. The actors we’re looking at aren’t working but are under contract to American studios to resume shooting immediately the strike finishes. It’s not just ‘name’ names. Look at the casts of ‘Lost,’ ‘The Wire,’ ‘Heroes.’ British talent is all over LA. So trying to get leads into next year’s theatre is very tricky. Terrible, in fact.”

Of course, the big reason for this is money. American TV and movies pay more than the theatre anywhere, by a factor of gazillions. Some actors and actresses are contractually forbidden to work until the suspended projects are completed. Yet even those who are free are loathe to give up the bigger Californian paycheck. And when the strike does end, there is going to be a huge demand for thespians and movie stars to get shows in the can.

The silver lining here is for thespians needing their big break back in the UK. It’s a story as old as the theatre itself – the lead can’t go on, the understudy can, and a star is born. Pity it took a strike like this to set the stage.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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