Books on the topic 'Actors' Equity Association'

This chapter examines the Actors' Equity Association's (AEA) campaign to raise the status of the acting community by cleansing it of its long-standing reputation for immorality. It focuses in the first instance on the efforts of Equity leaders to improve the collective image of actors by persuading the Methodist Church to lift its ban on commercial amusements and taking newspapers to task for reinforcing the association that existed in the public mind between acting and criminality. Its primary concern, however, was with the internal dimension of the campaign. It takes as its starting point the AEA's crusade against the excessive consumption of alcohol, a practice that straddled not only the divide between the legal and the extralegal but also the ill-defined line between the public sphere and the private sphere. It argues that accusations of drunkenness often functioned as a pretext for disciplining those performers whose sexual habits were at odds with the so-called civilized morality embraced by the leadership of the AEA—that is, “promiscuous” women and homosexual men. Even as the theater as a cultural institution was helping to redraw the boundaries of propriety in American society, the AEA was seeking to bind the men and women of the legitimate stage to a moral code that was rooted in increasingly outmoded notions of respectability.

This chapter focuses on new technology and its impact on acting as an occupation. It begins by describing how the advent of film transformed patterns of employment in the commercial entertainment industry. Returning to the theme of cultural hierarchy, it goes on to argue that even as the legitimate theater drifted toward the periphery of the nation's cultural life, the old theatrical elite continued to claim the right, through the mechanism of the Actors' Equity Association (AEA), to speak for the entire acting community. After examining working conditions in the motion picture studios, it turns its attention to the Equity campaign to organize the film industry, asserting that its architects were less concerned with negotiating a standard contract than with imposing their authority upon the men and women of the silver screen. The chapter argues that an overwhelming majority of motion picture actors reacted with hostility to what they saw as the AEA's attempt to “Broadwayize” Hollywood, interpreting it as a threat to their collective autonomy and a denial of the specificity of their work. By refusing to obey the strike call in the summer of 1929, they were declaring their independence from the traditions of the legitimate stage.

This chapter examines the long-term implications of the unionization of the legitimate theater. It begins with an analysis of the debate that took place within the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) in the early 1920s over where in labor's many-mansioned house its members should reside. Equity leaders distanced themselves not only from the radicalism of the left but also from the “pure-and-simple” craft unionism that was the bedrock of the American Federation of Labor, equating it with wage scales that were set without regard for merit and a closed-shop tradition that restricted access to unionized trades. What they embraced as an alternative was a peculiarly theatrical brand of occupational unionism that emphasized the occupational identity of the actor, as opposed to bread-and-butter issues like wages and hours, and tied union power to control over those within the occupation. The chapter then explains how the AEA secured its position as a permanent feature of the theatrical landscape at a time when, in all but a handful of industries, organized labor was in retreat. It locates the explanation in the dynamics of the theatrical economy, arguing that the industry's increasing reliance on outside capital meant the big producers could ill afford interruptions to production and had much to gain from cooperating with a union that had promised to deliver a compliant theatrical workforce. The final section documents the efforts of the AEA to deliver on its founders' pledge that it would “protect the high-minded actor and the high-minded manager in equal part.”

This chapter looks at the variety of causes Irwin was involved in, from animal rights to suffragism to pacifism. The chapter reviews the anti-trust movement led by Theodore Roosevelt and blossoming during Woodrow Wilson’s push for progressivism. Irwin’s immunity to anti-immigrant sentiment because of her Scottish roots is discussed. Her reason for opposition to the new Actors Equity Association is covered. As the calls for suffragism grow, Irwin lends her voice to the cause, as do other actress suffragists, including Mary Shaw and Lillian Russell. She urges Woodrow Wilson to appoint her as “Secretary of Laughter.” Through it all, she stresses the strong connection between women and humor and her belief that women have a greater sense of humor than men do.

This epilogue traces the collapse of the old theatrical economy after the onset of the Great Depression and assesses its impact on the men and women of the American stage. Highlighting the huge decline in employment opportunities in a perennially overcrowded labor market in the wake of the Great Crash, it argues that the brand of occupational unionism that had underpinned the activities of the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) in the 1920s ceased to meet the needs of the theatrical rank and file. In the highly politicized environment of the 1930s, traditional patterns of deference within the acting community broke down, and a new generation of actors, largely unschooled in the genteel tradition in American culture, began to question the wisdom of building an occupational identity around the twin ideals of workplace discipline and respectability. In 1935 a group of militants set out to seize control of the AEA and to guide it in a more radical direction. Though their insurgency failed, it had profound implications for actors' unionism in the American theater industry. It prompted a reorientation of the AEA toward the bread-and-butter needs of its constituents and a frank acknowledgment on the part of its leaders that actors are workers as well as artists—and that the first role is indivisible from the second.

This chapter focuses on the problems that organizing in defense of their collective interests posed for the men and women of the American stage and, indeed, for many other occupational groups on the margins of the American middle class. Beginning with an analysis of the work culture of actors, it argues that while the shared experiences of a life on the boards generated a powerful sense of group identity, individual ambition, the fuel that powered the star system, proved difficult to reconcile with the principles of collective action. It goes on to highlight how actors' leaders deployed the vocabulary of high culture and the larger language of class of which it was a part not simply to define their position in relation to the major theatrical employers but also to draw a line between those performers they deemed worthy of the label artist and those they did not. It concludes with a detailed analysis of the debate that raged within the ranks of the Actors' Equity Association over the question of affiliation with the organized labor movement. Paying careful attention to the language that the competing parties employed to articulate their respective positions, it documents the development of a schism within the theatrical community that sprang from two markedly different ways of conceptualizing the process of cultural production.

This chapter explores the origins of the organizational impulse that animated the American acting community in the early twentieth century. It begins by examining the transformation of the theatrical economy that was brought about by the rise of the theater trusts at the end of the nineteenth century. It goes on to consider production practices in the metropolitan theater industry, highlighting the growing emphasis on rationalization and standardization and exploring how this dual imperative impacted upon the creative process. It also looks at the experience of work in the early twentieth-century theater, documenting conditions on the theatrical shop floor and highlighting the role of race, ethnicity, and gender in determining the degree of opportunity available to individual performers. The chapter argues that while actors undoubtedly had grievances against their employers, the theater trusts had actually done a great deal to improve their lot by stabilizing a notoriously volatile employment market. The formation of the Actors' Equity Association in 1913 had less to do with conditions of employment than with a perception on the part of an influential section of the acting community that it had relinquished its accustomed autonomy to a group of employers whom they held responsible for declining standards in the theater.

The International Conference on Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Equality and Diversity in Sports (ICMPEDS) is organized by GESPORT with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union from the 14th to the 16th of July 2021. The conference is an excellent forum for academics, researchers, practitioners, athletes, man- agers and professionals of federations, associations and sport organizations, and those other- wise involved in sport to share and exchange ideas in different areas of sport related equality worldwide. We will keep you informed by email and post the latest information on this matter on the GESPORT website and social media. Sport and its management continues to be a field where men and masculinity strongly prevail. This conference aims to investigate the complexities attached to the following questions: What does gender openness mean in the context of sport in the 21st century? What persists as gen- der closure in the same context? What are the gender cultures that signify sport continuing to be defined by regimes that resort to a dominant masculinity embodied in a strong and athletic male body? Moreover, and albeit some exceptions, athletes, practitioners, decision and policy makers, and sports spectators are predominantly men. In this sense, gender discrimination and segregation are present in multiple aspects of sport. Some illustrations include: a) male athletes have high salaries, more career opportunities, and get more recognition by society than female athletes; b) management and leadership positions in sports organizations are mainly occupied by men, including in sports traditionally considered as feminine and which have become feminised (e.g. gymnastics and dance); c) masculinised sports and its male athletes have much more attention and recognition from the media than female athletes; d) sports journalism continues to be predominantly produced and managed by men; e) some sports spectatorships cultures are marked by rituals and interactions that resort to masculine tribalism, often leading to aggressive and violent behaviours. Gender discrimination in sport is somehow socially normalised and accepted through a dis- course that essentialises the embodied sexual differences between genders. This gender dis- course legitimises the exclusion of women in some sports modalities and traps female bodies in sociocultural constructions as less able to exercise and engage in sport, or as the second and weaker version of the ideal masculine body. However, there are signs that the context of sport may be changing. The European Union and some national governments have made an effort to promote gender equality and diversity by fostering the adoption of gender equality codes/policies in different modalities and in in- ternational and local sports organizations. These new policies aim to increase female partic- ipation and recognition in sport, their access to leadership positions and involvement in the decision-making in sport structures. Additionally, the number of women practising non-com- petitive sport and as sports spectators have started growing, leading to new representations of sport and challenging the role of women in such a context. Finally, different body constructions and the emergence of alternative embodied femininities and masculinities are also challeng- ing how athletes of both genders experience their bodies and sports practice. Yet, research is scarce about the impact of these changes/challenges in the sports context. This conference will focus on mapping gender relations in sport and its management by taking into account the different modalities, contexts, institutional policies, organizational structures and actors (e.g. athletes, spectators, media professionals, sport decision makers and man- agers). It will treat sport and its management as one avenue where gender segregation and inequality occurs, but also adopt such as a space that presents an opportunity for change and does so as a widely applicable topic whose traits and culture are reflected in organizations and work more broadly. In this sense, the conference is interested in theoretical and empirical research work that may explore, but are not limited to the following issues: • Women representativeness in sports modalities and in sport organizational structures in different countries; • Women and management accounting in sport organizations; • The gender regimes that (re)produce different sports policies, modalities, and institu- tions in sport; • The stories of resistance/conformity of women that already occupy different roles in sport contexts; • The challenges and impact of conventional and new body representations in sports institutions and including athletes of both genders; • The discourses of masculinities in sport and its effect on women and men athletes; • The emergence of nationalism and populist discourses in political and governments states and their impact on the (re)shaping of masculinity and femininity constructions in sport; • The gendered transformations of the spectators’ gaze in what concerns different sports modalities; • The effects of new groups of sports spectators on gender relations in sport; • The discourses in media and its participation in the sports gender (in)equality; • The impact of new technologies, and new practices of training/coaching in the body- work and identities of athletes of both genders.