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BLUE MEN VS. BLUE COLLARS

Blue Man Group has prospered around the world for 18 years without any role for organized labour. Local unions wanted here to be different. And so it is. The Toronto show has faced controversy from the outset. Previews start Tuesday and sparks are still flying, writes Richard Ouzounian

RICHARD OUZOUNIAN
Toronto Star
June 5, 2005

What a difference a year makes.

It was June 20, 2004, when the Star first broke the news that the world-renowned Blue Man Group was planning to open a Toronto company of their drum-beating, Twinkie-eating, paint-splashing piece of performance art.

"We hope to do Blue Man (in Toronto) for a long, long time," said Scott Zeiger, chief executive officer of Clear Channel's North American theatre division. "We're all very pumped about bringing this show to Toronto.

"We're assuming there will not be a hitch."

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. With the first preview set for Tuesday night, the major focus is not on the show itself, but on the boycott against it waged by Toronto's three major performing arts unions — Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the Toronto Musicians' Association and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

Inflammatory rhetoric is now the order of the day, lawsuits are being threatened and the unions are planning continued action once the previews start.

There have been minor precendents of labour dissension (such as the non-Equity tour of Grease that played the Hummingbird Centre for a few nights in 2003), but this is the first long-run show that will require Torontonians to decide whether to cross an informational picket line to enjoy an evening's entertainment.

How could such an unthreatening arts project become such a lightning rod?

To discover the answer, it's necessary to go back not just a year, to when the announcement of Blue Man's Toronto engagement was made, but back to 1987 when the group was formed.

It was then that Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink first smeared blue makeup on their faces and started to turn themselves into pieces of human Dada.

Meeting up with them last month in New York, in the former East Village movie theatre that serves as their crowded home base, they still maintain the counterculture vibe that got them started, although if you had gone to central casting, you couldn't have found a less likely trio to cast as revolutionary artists.

Goldman has an MBA and had been working as a software programmer for seven years. Stanton was a children's theatre veteran who spent a lot of time as a waiter, while Wink made a living by synopsizing English articles for Japanese magazines, then going off and drumming in post-punk bands after hours. But they all had a desire to express themselves in new and different ways.

"It was the '80s," recalls Goldman, "and the big cultural event of that decade was everyone getting their own VCRs. Otherwise, forget it."

They started out by holding informal "salons" for their friends on Sunday afternoons and trying out a mélange of music, theatre, art and sheer craziness. Wink was the first one to paint himself blue, and the other two soon followed.

From the very start, they've insisted that there was no symbolic reason for the colour choice. They simply wanted, in Wink's words, "to come up with something that transcended race and sex."

In 1988, they attracted public notice for the first time when they staged what Stanton called "a premature funeral for the '80s," burying samples of detested objects from the decade on Central Park's Great Lawn.

Their next public event occurred outside a then-popular salsa club called the Copacabana. While the crowd waited to get in, the Blue Men roped off a section of the sidewalk and christened it Club Nowhere, where people could dance for free.

A distinctive collective character slowly emerged. The Blue Man never spoke or showed emotion. He expressed himself through his music, which usually took the form of frenetic percussion, or by splashing paint everywhere.

He acknowledged the presence of the audience and frequently offered them gifts such as Twinkies and marshmallows, meant to mock consumerism.

In a few years, this wordless social commentary and wacky performance art had coalesced into a show called Tubes which opened at the funky Astor Place Theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Nov. 17, 1991.

They were an instant hit, and at first, Goldman admits, "we were overwhelmed by the whole experience." Three guys who had abandoned their other work to goof on the street, being total unknowns, were suddenly appearing on The Tonight Show and playing to sold-out crowds.

Then something interesting happened, especially in light of their current labour troubles. The Blue Men took control of the show from the producers who had lured them from the street to the Astor.

"We realized," said Goldman, "that the working conditions we were in were terrible, and the guys in charge didn't care as long as we were making lots of money for them."

From that point on, Goldman, Wink and Stanton have been in charge of their organization in a hands-on way, right down to the current wrangling with the unions in Toronto.

"Despite the fact that we have had to deal with their lawyer most of the time," says Susan Wallace, executive director of Canadian Actors' Equity, "there has never been any question in our minds that the Blue Men were calling all the shots themselves."

And they've been successful at doing it. They now have shows running in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas and Berlin. The estimated annual box-office take of these projects is well in excess of $125 million (all figures Canadian).

It's no wonder that everyone thought Toronto would be a slam dunk for the Blue Men.

"We're the trickster/jester pointing to the problems in society," says Wink. "We thought we'd find a perfect home in Canada for what we do. We were excited to go to a place where people think about the quality of life and know how to treat each other, where there's a real sense of community."

But it was just that sense of community that they came crashing up against once they started into production.

"As soon as we heard they were coming last June," recalls Susan Wallace, "we wrote a letter saying how exciting it all was and wondering how we could work together."

But Wallace never got a reply, and the group began holding open auditions in Toronto last October, without having made any contact with Canadian Actors' Equity.

When Wallace pressed the issue she started to get the corporate runaround. "Between November and January, I must have spoken to a dozen different people, and each one said, `It's not us; it's them.' No one would give me a straight answer."

It had become obvious that the Blue Man Group was intending to run its Toronto production the way it had operated around the world since it started: as a non-union shop.

"We are not now and have never been signatory to a collective agreement with any union," says Goldman firmly.

The reason they've been able to operate that way in the United States, according to Wink, is that "American Equity never considered what we do to be under their jurisdiction because we're under the performance art tradition."

Maria Somma, spokesperson for the American branch of Actors' Equity Association, supports Wink's statement.

"Blue Man Group was never pursued by Equity to join us because their show doesn't have a book (script) and consequently wouldn't fall under our jurisdiction."

But Wallace and her colleagues at the musicians' union and IATSE didn't buy that argument.

"That's not how we work here," she insists. "They're coming into a new community that has new standards. If Blue Man Group wants to be part of our city, then it has to recognize and work with the unions in operation here."

The first public clash occurred when the Blue Men staged their initial meet-and-greet for the media last Jan. 19 at the Phoenix Theatre.

Wallace and her cohorts assembled more than 100 picketers in the icy rain, waving placards and passing out informational pamphlets. The notice it attracted finally got the attention of the Blue Men, and they agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Wallace in New York, which happened two days later.

"It was at a coffee shop," says Wallace with a laugh, "and they showed up late and told us they couldn't stay for very long. They made it clear they would not be signatories to any union agreement and urged us to `think outside the box.' Then they asked if there was anything else they could do, like maybe make a donation to one of our charitable organizations."

And that was literally the last time that any of the Blue Men talked directly with a member of a Canadian union.

Since then, matters have been in the hands of Toronto labour relations lawyer Jamie Knight from Filion Wakely Thorup Angeletti. He has met in person or on phone on 10 occasions with Jim Biros, business manager of the Toronto Musicians' Association, who has been acting on behalf of the union coalition.

Despite the heated rhetoric on both sides away from the conference table, Biros and Knight insist their encounters carried no such tone.

"They weren't contentious meetings," claims Biros. "We were both really trying to solve the problem. The very unfortunate part was it never even got to a negotiation. In the end, they just decided they wouldn't do a deal."

Knight makes it clear that "Matt, Phil and Chris were completely aware that they were in a different jurisdiction and that the rules of America didn't apply here. But I firmly believe there was no legal reason why they had to enter into any union agreements here and so they chose not to. It's a philosophical point with them."

A "Boycott Blue Man" movement and website were started in March, urging all relevant union members to refuse to have anything to do with the organization.

And so, by the end of April, the union coalition was expanding its anti-Blue Man campaign. While the chosen Toronto cast members were happily rehearsing in Manhattan and working on a "Canadian medley" that included the theme from Hockey Night in Canada, the coalition was planning to target the Panasonic Theatre (formerly the New Yorker), the home of the impending show, with a series of pickets and banners urging a full consumer embargo of the show.

Their most devastating comment was that the Blue Men's failure to join the Canadian unions would mean the show being presented in Toronto would be "unprofessional."

When news of this reached the Blue Men in New York, they responded with a mixture of anger and frustration.

"We have our own values, our own way of doing things," says Goldman. "Don't they understand that? To call us unprofessional is sad, hurtful and inaccurate."

"We're not interested in their feelings," counters Wallace. "We're concerned about the salaries, benefits, safety standards and working conditions of the people they hire."

When asked about details of their standard employment agreements, Goldman insists that salaries and benefits are "as good or better" than those required by the union, but, when pressed, he refuses to offer any facts and figures.

And Knight maintains "fairness is not something that necessarily comes with a union agreement nor is it necessarily absent without a union agreement."

But that whole issue was put into question this past week when Mark Finkelstein went public about his brief, unhappy stint with the Toronto Blue Man Company.

Finkelstein, although not a union member, is a 30-year veteran of the Canadian music business, including five years as the head sound technician at Lee's Palace and five years with the band Moist in a similar capacity.

He was hired to work as sound operator for the Toronto Blue Man show at an hourly rate of $21 and guaranteed 41 hours a week. Soon after he started, he was told the hours were to be drastically curtailed and that there would be no minimum weekly guarantee. His benefits were also not to kick in until the following March, although after complaints, they conceded he might get them starting in September.

All of that is totally out of line, according to Kevin Mahoney, executive officer of Local 58 of IATSE.

Mahoney uses the Winter Garden Theatre as a point of reference and quotes the hourly rate there at $24.54, with a full guarantee of weekly employment. Benefits take effect immediately.

It wasn't just money that drove Finkelstein away, but what he calls "an abusive, stressful, stifling work environment."

In contrast with that, two of the Canadians employed as performers in the company feel quite differently.

Actor Scott Bishop says he is being treated "fabulously. It's one of the best jobs I've ever had." And musician Bruce Gordon says, "I don't know why anyone would say anything against (the show). It's one of the best things I've ever done."

Despite all this tension, meetings and discussions between Knight and Biros continued. The Blue Men offered to pay any dues or fees that the musicians' union and IATSE would have to forgo because of the show's non-union status, but they were flatly turned down.

"They thought we were greedy bastards out for a buck," rages IATSE's Mahoney. "They didn't understand that the important thing to all of us was principles, not money."

And then, a week ago last Friday, Biros got a phone call from Knight, ending all further discussion.

"I have no cheery news," says Knight. "We've reached the end of the road. The chips are going to have to fall where they may. Blue Man has reached their chosen position."

That position was made perfectly clear the following day in the full-page ads that Blue Man Group took in the major Toronto papers.

In it, they denounced "the theatrical union leadership's questionable rhetoric and coercive tactics," while going on to state that "it is an employee's choice to join a union — not an employer's place to require it."

The gloves were clearly off and Blue Man stepped up the attack last Tuesday by filing a complaint against the Boycott Coalition with the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

The coalition retaliated by increasing their picketing outside the Panasonic and posting a "Bill Of Rights" on the door of the theatre.

"I find these tactics repugnant," says Knight. "It's not like we're talking about illegal immigrants being forced to pick grapes under horrible conditions."

Biros is sadder. "At the end of the day, we never want to boycott any production. We only want to protect the best interests of the people who are trying to make a living in this profession."

Will this boycott influence the future of Blue Man Group in Toronto?

The advance sale for the show is currently $650,000. While Blue Man's director of public relations, Manny Igrejias, claims "it's the highest advance sale we've ever had in a city at this point in time," it certainly looks sparse behind comparable Toronto offerings.

Even allowing for the fact that the Panasonic is one-third the size of the Princess of Wales, the $20 million advance of shows such as The Lion King certainly raises doubts by comparison as to how much interest there currently is in the local run of the Blue Man Group.

The irony of the whole situation is that the independent thinking that led to the group's creation in New York may prove to be its undoing in Toronto.

In Goldman's words, "The unions are using their power tools to force us to try and accept something that is not going to work for us. At the end of the day, we want to let the people of Toronto decide."

And they will.