The Latest News

By JAMES ADAMS
Saturday, April 16, 2005 | Page M1 - The Globe and Mail

It's not going to rank with Muhammad Ali's 1965 fight against Sonny Liston, or the 1892 Homestead strike by steel workers against Andrew Carnegie. But the feud between the New York-based theatre troupe Blue Man Group and four Toronto theatrical unions is turning into a battle that could become a milestone for the city's entertainment community.

The issue has become so heated that the unions and their national affiliates have banned their members from auditioning or applying for any of the jobs in the Canadian version of a multimedia show that has become an international hit. American performers are also being told to stay away -- U.S. Actors' Equity has forbidden its members to try out for the production.

When tickets go on sale on Monday, at $59 per person, buyers could end up with a seat for a Canadian premiere production performed by a largely non-professional cast and crew. But if a union-led ticket boycott prevails, there won't be many purchasers anyway.

In short, an irresistible force (the unions) seems to be moving inexorably toward an immovable object (Blue Man Group). And Torontonians get to watch the explosion.

Worries about the fate of the show have run high since Canadian Actors' Equity, the Toronto Musicians' Association and two locals of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees began publicly raising concerns this year about Blue Man Group's refusal to sign collective agreements with them.

(The production, scheduled to open June 7, will be held at the Panasonic Theatre and involve an estimated 35 backstage and on-stage positions.)

This week, local politicians entered the fray. Mayor David Miller urged the group to go to the bargaining table, while on Wednesday, NDP culture critic Rosario Marchese stood in the Ontario Legislature to say, "Blue Man Group must respect labour standards if they want to produce in Canada" and pledged his support of the boycott.

The Paris-based International Federation of Musicians has now placed Blue Man on its list of "international unfair" organizations. And to bolster their drive to get the group to negotiate deals, the four theatrical unions have enlisted the support of numerous other organizations here, in the United States and elsewhere (including the Norwegian Actors' Equity Association and Brussels-based Union Network International, which represents 130 entertainment-related unions). In Ontario alone, it's estimated that more than 750,000 unionized workers are being targeted not to buy tickets to Blue Man Group.

For decades, virtually every major theatre in Toronto, and every major live theatrical production has involved a unionized work force -- actors, musicians, makeup and wardrobe artists, lighting technicians, hair stylists, stagehands. It's a tradition the unions wish to hold Blue Man Group to at the same time as they're worried about the precedent a non-union Blue Man might set for future live shows. These concerns have particular resonance now, as the city tries to shrug off its post-SARS doldrums and anticipation builds for the opening of The Lord of the Rings musical, still more than 10 months away.

With hits such as Mamma Mia!, 'da Kink in my Hair, Wicked and Evita either booked into short runs or on the verge of closing, Blue Man Group is looking more and more like Toronto's coup de théâtre, at least for the short term. While hardly a Lion King-style blockbuster, it promises steady work -- they're planning an open-ended run with as many as 11 performances a week -- and reliable paycheques to cast and crew if the success it has enjoyed elsewhere translates here.

The production began in 1987 as a small, improvised show revolving around three blue-faced performers' wordless antics. In 1991, it moved into New York's Astor Place Theatre, where, as it exploded in popularity, it went high-tech and high-profile. The company now employs more than 500 people worldwide and goes through up to $100-million a year.

Blue Man still likes to use words such as "accessible," "user-friendly," "courteous" and "gentle" to describe its sensibility. Representatives say it takes "great care to get to know the people, the community and the culture" of every city in which it's mounted a show, "and Toronto is no exception."

But such homey rhetoric isn't persuasive to Lynn McQueen, communications director for Canadian Equity. "It's like they're saying, 'Look at us: we're a small, creative community theatre that grew.' But they don't seem to want to have any dealings whatsoever with the community they're coming to."

IATSE stagehand president Gordon Graham agrees: "They think they can walk into Canada with this attitude that they don't have to deal with the professional theatrical environment."

The "three long-time friends" (Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink) who founded it have become millionaires many times over -- a result not only of keeping their off-Broadway show going non-stop for almost 15 years but their parlaying of Blue Man Group into a brand that can sell cars, CDs, concerts, DVDs, wireless laptops and magazines while worming its way into movies (Robots) and TV shows (Arrested Development).

Later this year, it hopes to get a show running in London, another city with a strong tradition of theatre guilds. Recently, Blue Man Group also announced it would be moving from the one venue in North America with which it has a union deal -- with IATSE at Las Vegas's Luxor Theatre, where it has been for about five years -- to a non-union space, the Venetian.

In the meantime, Blue Man Group says it's "proceeding as planned" with its Toronto opening. Shut off from professionals, it will probably try to go with a cast and crew of amateurs, "rogue" unionists, retired professionals and former unionists who've had their credentials decertified or withdrawn. The company could also try to bring in performers from U.S. unions, such as the American Guild of Variety Artists, that have no "I'll-back-you-if-you-back-me" accords with Canadian organizations.

This last tactic requires, say, a Las Vegas mime artist or a Boston bassist to get a work permit from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Blue Man New York to apply to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada for "a labour market opinion" that okays such a hire because it fills a labour shortage and involves "special and unique skills" not held by Canadians. To counter this, the Canadian unions already have put HRSDC on notice that such hires could be in violation of foreign-worker regulations that require employers to conduct "reasonable efforts" to hire or train Canadians and to demonstrate that hiring foreign workers "will not affect a labour dispute or the employment of any Canadian worker involved in such a dispute."

In the meantime, the unions say they're putting pressure on Panasonic and the theatre's landlord, Clear Channel, to get Blue Man thinking about collective agreements. They're also contacting potential suppliers and sponsors. And if the show still goes ahead? Well, "ticket" rhymes with "picket," which means, come June, patrons can expect to run a gauntlet of placard-waving demonstrators, some no doubt shouting until they're, um, blue in the face.

© 2005 The Globe and Mail

The original article is located HERE