Dissident Actors Take Equity Assn. to Court; Agreement Reached on New LORT Contract

The news that 15 dissident members of Actors’ Equity Assn. have gone to court to try to block their union from implementing its new Actors’ 99-seat Theatre Plan came as no surprise to people in the theater community.

The actors said all along that they would go the distance if the matter couldn’t be settled through intra-union procedures.

The controversy surrounding the plan (a modification of the Waiver) focuses not only on its content, but also on the manner in which Equity went about submitting it to a vote.

It was approved April 3 by a mail referendum that Equity says was fair, but that the dissidents insist misrepresented their position.

Equity’s attorney, Leo Geffner, said Wednesday that “the adoption of the new (Actors’) plan is 100% an internal policy matter. The Waiver, which has been in effect since 1972, was an internal policy decision, and the change, requiring compensation for actors, is also an internal matter. The authority to adopt new rules rests with the union’s council.”

What about the membership resolutions that plaintiffs claim were ignored by council?

“Membership resolutions have no binding effect. They have no legal significance.”

When asked what federal law Equity is accused of violating in the suit, Geffner said: “I don’t know. The plaintiffs made some very general statements. We feel there’s been no violation of Equity’s constitution. In the context of this case, the plaintiffs are producers. They are the people who run these theaters. Their interest here is not as actors but as producers. As producers they are trying to interfere with and guide Equity policy. It would be like General Motors interfering with the internal policies of the Auto Workers Union.”

Which brings up an interesting side bar: role-perception. While Equity perceives actor-producers as producers first and actors second, the dissident actors perceive union officials as management figures trying to dictate terms.

It’s worth noting that in a press release issued by the dissidents’ attorneys, the group’s Martha W. Hammer says they took the case on a pro bono basis because of “the concern about the significant unfair acts of union officials which seriously undermined basic principles of union democracy under federal law.

“We also felt that there was a larger community interest at stake and that the union members ought to have a fair and informed opportunity to decide how they want Waiver theater to be structured, rather than to have union officials dictate that decision to them.”

Meanwhile, a decision on whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order that would prevent the new Actors’ plan from going into effect Oct. 3 is expected next week.

MORE EQUITY: On a less controversial matter, Equity and the League of Resident Theaters have reached a tentative agreement on a new three-year contract. The agreement, which would replace the contract that ended Sunday, must be ratified by both organizations. While details were not immediately available, the new contract is said to include pay increases, a new rule to govern co-productions and transfers, and greater flexibility in rules governing the production of musicals.

There are 70 league theaters nationwide--including the Mark Taper Forum and the Los Angeles Theatre Center--and about 30 companies that do not belong to the league but operate under its contracts.

BENEFITS: “Very Special Friends” of the United Negro College Fund are hosting a gala benefit at tonight’s preview performance of the Earth Players of Johannesburg’s anti-apartheid play “Bopha!” at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Special guests will be singers Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, as well as the South African Student Singers, a group of 12 young South Africans performing native songs and dances. For information: (213) 382-7357. . . .

Time flies when you’re a hit. Paul Linke, who’s extraordinary dramatized account of his wife’s death by cancer, “Time Flies When You’re Alive,” has been running for months on a Sunday-Wednesday schedule at the Tiffany Theatre, will be taking the show to New York’s Cherry Lane in November.

Before he does, however, he’ll play the Pasadena Playhouse’s Balcony Theatre (Oct. 4-8) and the Mark Taper Forum (Oct. 17). The Taper date is a benefit sponsored by the Beverly Hills Medical Center, with proceeds going to the American Cancer Society for the provision of education and free mammography for needy women--and the establishment of a women’s health program at the West Side Jewish Community Center. “Time” ends at the Tiffany Sept. 28.

PIECES & BITS: The Shakespeare Festival/LA is moving its “Comedy of Errors” to the John Anson Ford Theatre for two performances: Saturday and Sunday, 3:30 p.m. Admission is still nonperishable essentials (canned food, clothing) for the needy. Call (213) 489-1121. . . . The La Jolla Playhouse production of “80 Days,” the new musical by Snoo Wilson and Ray Davies based on the Jules Verne book, has extended to Oct. 9. . . . Also extending is “The Sum of Us” at USC’s Stop Gap Theatre. . . . The Musical Theater Workshop of the California Music Theatre is auditioning fall applicants. Call (818) 792-0776 for information. . . . “Blame It On the Movies II,” or Son of the Reel Music of Hollywood, opens Oct. 2 at the Coast Playhouse. . . . The Groundlings, seen Wednesday on George Schlatter’s “Funny People,” will be the opening act for comic Louie Anderson at the Universal Amphitheater on Sunday. . . . Eve Brent, Carole Cook, Ronnie Claire Edwards, Dana Hill and Tracy Shaffer join Barbara Rush in “Steel Magnolias,” launching the Pasadena Playhouse’s 71st season Sept. 25. . . . And Robert Ellenstein’s minimalist “Hamlet” (a hit during last year’s Fringe Festival) is the inaugural show at the Actors Center new Mainstage in Studio City. It opens Sept. 30.