SAG-AFTRA N.Y. - Fall 2014

Fall 2014

N.Y.

Old Dogs, New iTricks Seniors – It’s not too late to join the digital revolution!

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oday’s job market requires almost everyone to know computer basics like email and the Internet, and actors in particular should know how to keep up with casting notices, submit material for jobs and put together an audition video.

Many senior performers who feel confident in their acting skills find themselves intimidated by this new technological landscape.

Fortunately, there are resources available to SAG-AFTRA members who want to learn these skills.

There are also free classes offered by the city of New York that are specifically tailored for seniors.

“The SAG Foundation’s new Actors Center at 1900 Broadway is a great place for members of all ages to learn computer skills that will help them compete for jobs,” said SAG Foundation Treasurer Maureen Donnelly. For the beginner, the Foundation offers an “Ask Any Computer Question” lab, where members can learn how to navigate the Web, send an email, attach a headshot to an email, or get comfortable with the basics of Macs and PCs. The lab also covers navigating online casting and video websites.

For more advanced students, classes are available on using Photoshop for headshots, and iMovie and Final Cut continues on page 2 >>>

Letter from NY President Mike Hodge > p3 “I Am a New York Actor” Lynn Cohen > p6 A visit to the Lillian Booth Home > p8 Perspective: AGMA’s Alan Gordon > p10 Staff Spotlight: Beau Dasher > p11

SPECIAL

BROADCAST COVERAGE

Broadcaster Safety > p4 Broadcast Spotlight: Chris Cimino > p5 Remembering Stan Brooks > p9

SAG-AFTRA NY VOL. 3 • NO. 2

NEW YORK COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE Liz Zazzi Chair Jeff Spurgeon Vice Chair

SAG-AFTRA Board members show their support for IATSE’s Save the Met Opera social media campaign

Supporting the Labor Community of New York City

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he SAG-AFTRA New York Local showed its support for the local labor community this summer. During the month of August, SAG-AFTRA Board members supported IATSE in its successful Save the Met Opera social media campaign. The unions for the Met Opera, located directly across the street from the SAG-AFTRA New York office, successfully completed their negotiations with management on Aug. 21, and IATSE took to social media again to thank all of its supporters, tweeting,

NEW iTRICKS >>> continued from page 1 Pro editing software so you can create your own audition videos.

If you don’t own a computer, you can reserve one for use at a public library. The New York Public Library offers over 80 free TechConnect classes. Learn how to create your own website to post your photos and videos. Instead of sending multiple headshots to a casting agency, you can send them a link to your Web page. Learn how to stay connected through various mobile devices so that you are always reachable. If a casting director can’t reach you, they might move on.

Free classes are also available at senior centers and parks department recreation centers.

Information can be found through the NYC Department for the Aging. People over 60 are the fastest-growing segment of computer and Internet users. Don’t be left out.

Every actor knows that an actor’s job is not just doing the work but finding the work. And while

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“We are truly grateful for your support. @IATSE members will keep the opera singing because you saved the @MetOpera! #savethemet #1u.”

The New York Local also participated in the New York City-Central Labor Council’s Labor Day Parade, held Sept. 6. Nearly 70 SAG-AFTRA members and elected leaders marched up 5th Avenue proudly carrying the parade banner and sporting T-shirts and caps with the union’s new logo.

The parade celebrated New York City’s working families and the New York labor community.

Anne Gartlan Mike Hodge John Metaxas Sharon Washington

•••

EDITORIAL STAFF Richard Baldwin Communications Coordinator Bernadine Goldberg Manager, Member Outreach

the fundamentals of doing the work (learning lines, bringing truth to the character) may not have changed much, everything about finding work today has changed tremendously.

> Resources: • SAG FOUNDATION To sign up for classes, go to sagfoundation.org and click on the Programs tab, then the NY Events tab and choose your class. For additional information, call (212) 827-1401.

• NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Questions?

Comments?

Compliments?

Visit your local branch or go to nypl.org and click on the Classes & Events tab, then at the left click on NYPL Tech Connect Classes. Some classes require registration.

We’d like to hear from you!

Send your suggestions and comments to

• NYC DEPARTMENT FOR THE AGING

NewYork@sagaftra.org

For information on free classes and programs provided by the city, go to nyc.gov/aging. In the left column, click on Senior Savvy, and then Seniors on the Web.

Please write

NEWSLETTER in the subject of your email.

Negotiate, Ratify, Repeat Dear Member, If it seems like it’s been busy, that’s because it has!

This has been the year of the contract, with major negotiations on many of our agreements — all in one year. We negotiate many more agreements as a merged union than we did individually, and much of that work is happening in 2014.

Earlier this year, we completed negotiations on TV/Theatrical/New Media agreements with the major motion picture and television employers and the membership ratified those agreements with a 92-percent yes vote.

Those contracts cover scripted, mostly primetime comedies and dramas, and motion pictures of all types.

In a major milestone, these agreements were unified and now cover all of the actor/ performer and singer/dancer work under one set of SAG-AFTRA agreements. We are aligning our contracts just as we said we would during the merger. Unified contracts will help solve a number of on-set issues and will ensure that you know what you’re being paid before you arrive on set.

More recently, we concluded negotiations on the TV animation contracts.

I am asking for the people who work in animation to join our effort to bring more animation work to New York.

Our broadcaster contracts are many and widespread. They are in regular negotiation

all the time by staff members who are strategically located across the country.

This year alone, we have seen numerous organizing successes that improved union density in multiple broadcast markets and our negotiators have secured significant contract gains in bargaining.

They’ve also done great work organizing jobs under our audiobooks contracts.

Sound recordings negotiations are also underway. The AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Sound Recordings covers featured/royalty artists and background singers on sound recordings, along with members who record cast albums, audiobooks and any sound recording utilizing vocal performance. We are now moving forward on negotiations for the Network Television Code. The Network Code covers most other television dayparts (see the Network Code story below).

As a vice chair of the Network Code negotiations committee, I am looking forward to representing members’ interests as we bargain this crucial agreement. I will keep you informed regarding those negotiations and our expected schedule.

I would like to say a word about our amazing staff. They are our partners in all negotiations even while they are enforcing and administering these and other agreements. And they do it all without an optimal number of warm bodies simply because the demands are many and the available resources are few. Our staff is

A LETTER FROM THE NEW YORK PRESIDENT

MIKE HODGE extraordinary and I admire and respect their strategic thinking, their critical problemsolving abilities and their good humor and amazing willingness to work hard.

While your member representatives on the various contract committees are knee deep in wages and working conditions meetings and preparation for negotiations, the staff is right there with us.

They guide our understanding of contract issues and support our drive to improve the contracts for members and fight off onerous proposals from management.

That’s what negotiators do: get as much as humanly possible from the employers, while giving up as little as possible.

Our staff has done really impressive work on all of these negotiations. We are fortunate to have them on our team. I have seen by their work and their words that they are here because they believe in what we do and they want to help us secure the best possible future for today’s members and for those who follow.

I hope you will join me in sending the staff a huge thank you for their great work.

— In Solidarity

NETWORK CODE NEGOTIATIONS SET TO BEGIN

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AG-AFTRA will begin talks in Los Angeles on Nov. 3 with the four major broadcast television networks to renegotiate the Network Television Code. The major agreement covers non-dramatic programs, daytime serials, variety, quiz, game, reality, talk, news and sports programs, some syndicated dramatic programs, and promotional announcements.

Here in New York, the agreement covers familiar primetime non-dramatic shows such as America’s Got Talent and Celebrity Apprentice, popular late-night shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman,

Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show and Late Night with Seth Meyers. It also covers daytime shows like The View, Doctor Oz, Live with Kelly and Michael, The Wendy Williams Show, The Chew, Good Morning America, The Today Show and syndicated shows The People’s Court, Jerry Springer, The Maury Povich Show, Rachael Ray, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and The Steve Wilkos Show. Daytime serials (soap operas) are also covered by this agreement.

Soap opera work was once a staple of employment for the New York actor, but unfortunately no soaps are currently shooting in New York.

Proposals for this important negotiation were developed through the participation of the New York membership. In August and September, the Television Contracts Department conducted a series of wages and working conditions meetings. The meetings had very good attendance and members made their voices heard. The National Board approved the proposals package at its Oct. 11 and 12 plenary.

If you have any questions about the Network Television Code or any other television contracts, please contact the Television Contracts Department at (212) 863-4270.

FALL 2014 // SAG-AFTRA NY //

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Broadcaster Safety

By Sean Adams

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ar correspondents expect to face peril.

It’s an inherent part of the job. They don helmets and flak jackets knowing they’re in the line of fire. Local news reporters in the New York metro area, on the other hand, don’t usually anticipate the worst, although they are not immune to conflict, strife and danger. It can be a jungle on the streets and journalists are well advised to stay alert. Here are some of their stories.

“I guess I dodged a bullet and a knife that morning,” says news reporter Kathleen Maloney, recalling a homicide in the Bronx roughly four years ago. She was still with 1010 WINS. She arrived at the scene before sunrise.

There were no police or other reporters around. A distraught family member turned toward her with a knife while another man emerged with a gun. “I put my hands up and backed up to the car,” Maloney explains.

“Then I realized the guy with the gun was trying to get the man with the knife to stop advancing on me.” She left the scene, collected herself, consulted with her editor and returned half an hour later to complete her assignment.

Longtime WCBS 880 reporter Rich Lamb also stared down the barrel of a gun. In the early 1980s after a mayoral primary in Newark, a mugger confronted Lamb on his way to his car. “The holdup man draped a coat over a clearly visible handgun,” Lamb recalls. “He told me to give it up or he would shoot. I thought that was the end. I held out my wallet, he reached in, took $80 and dashed off. I was just glad to be alive.”

WPIX reporter Mike Sheehan knows the streets. Before he picked up a microphone for FOX 5, he was a veteran NYPD homicide detective. Once, in a housing project elevator, a group of teens roughed up the cameraman and tried to steal his equipment. “I pretended to have a gun. I put my hand in my pocket.

I showed my shield and made the guys put their hands on the wall.” Sheehan says his charade worked. “I locked them on the roof.

As we left they threw rocks at us,” he says.

Some neighborhoods are like the Wild West, plagued by gun violence. One place where a reporter would hope never to hear the crackle of gunfire is New York City Hall. “We heard the pop, pop, pop,” says

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former Metro Networks News Director Glen Schuck. He remembers being with veteran 1010 WINS newsman Stan Brooks in the radio room when a political rival assassinated Councilman James Davis on the City Council Chamber balcony. “We saw Davis and his killer at the water cooler just two minutes before the shooting,” Schuck recalls. He says a police sergeant told him and Brooks to take cover under their desks. “I was shaking like a leaf. Stan was cool as a cucumber. We cover stories like this all the time. It was the first time I realized what people are feeling when they’re trapped in a place with a shooter. You are helpless,” Schuck says.

Sometimes we are truly helpless, powerless against life’s random twists and turns. In 2004, a hit-and-run driver mowed down Eyewitness News reporter Sade Baderinwa as she prepared to broadcast at the scene of flooding in Hackensack. She endured multiple surgeries and months of rehabilitation. In 2003, as NY-1 reporter Rebecca Spitz covered a story in Harlem, the side mirror of a passing van struck her head and knocked her to the pavement, fracturing her skull. To relieve pressure from her swelling brain, doctors kept Spitz in a medically induced coma for 57 days.

She had to relearn how to walk and write.

Other reporters, too, have faced hazards on the roads. Superstorm Sandy was already battering Long Island when 1010 WINS reporter Holli Haerr received marching orders to relocate to Long Beach. As she approached a bridge, the tidal surge blocked her path. Meanwhile, flood waters had crept up behind her — she was cut off. “A couple of times, I made a U-turn in water that was up to my headlights and thought, ‘This is it, this is where the car gets stuck,’” Haerr says. The engine never conked out but the interior of the

SAFETY4MEDIA

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AG-AFTRA’s News & Broadcast department has launched a new website and social media campaign focusing on the safety of its broadcast members and other journalists around the globe. Started in June, Safety4Media offers a way for broadcast members and journalists to confidentially report safety incidents and features safety tips for journalists who may be covering protests or civil unrest, or otherwise find themselves working in circumstances that raise safety concerns. Visit safety4media.org to find out more.

car was flooded — it was a total loss. “Next time I would tell my editor that I’ve found a safe spot. I’m not moving around during a hurricane,” she says.

Life is unpredictable. Sometimes danger strikes like a bolt out of the blue. One such day was Sept. 11, 2001. Many journalists started that morning covering the mayoral primary.

Then terrorists flew commercial jetliners into the Twin Towers. Veteran WCBS 880 City Hall reporter Mary Gay Taylor arrived quickly in front of the Millennium Hotel on Church Street. Taylor was in her mid-60s. When the South Tower collapsed, she had nowhere to run, so she dove under the bumper of an emergency service vehicle. Her world went black. Toxic WTC dust filled her eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. She thought she was dead.

A police officer with a flashlight found Taylor and assisted her. Covered in the pulverized remains of the tower, she returned to City Hall to broadcast. With a hoarse voice, she gave a heart-pounding account of her experience and even apologized on-air for losing her tape recorder.

When you’re shoulder to shoulder with soldiers, crouching in a trench in some violent corner of the world, no one has to tell you to keep your head down. When you’re covering the local beat in New York, it helps to have street smarts. Kathleen Maloney grew up in the Bronx. “Safety is always on my mind and I feel I have a pretty good instinct and intuition,” she says. Mike Sheehan will forever be a cop first. He says, “It’s my gut more than anything else. You have to evaluate it and determine: Is it worth getting hurt over a story?”

— Sean Adams is a SAG-AFTRA New York Local member. He is a longtime reporter at WCBS 880 Newsradio.

Chris Cimino

By Jeff Spurgeon

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ome people don’t have much choice about what they’ll be when they grow up. Chris Cimino, meteorologist on NBC 4 New York’s morning show, Today in New York, is one of those people.

“I had two dreams in life.

One was to play center field for the Mets and one was to be a TV weatherman in New York. I couldn’t throw a curve, so now I do this.”

The first paving stone in Cimino’s career path was buried in the snow of a Nor’easter that visited New York in February 1969. “As a first- or second-grader, watching the city and my busy street just come to a standstill: wow, weather did this? I would watch all the local TV weather people at the time, and I started drawing my own maps in little notebooks in second and third grade.”

TV weather forecasting combines two fields: meteorology and broadcasting. Cimino went to CCNY for his Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology. He says it might surprise people to learn that he took the same foundational courses as engineering students, including calculus and physics. He learned broadcasting on the job, starting with radio.

“My first job was with a private weather service, CompuWeather, and then Metro Weather. They were both based in Queens, but their clients were radio stations around the country. I was forecasting weather for Aspen, Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; Miami; Houston; Boston. It was a gentleman named Pat Pagano, the president of Metro Weather, who really, from the standpoint of radio, taught me how to have fun with weather. You could make jokes and have a good time and become a personality, too. He was really the first person that taught me how to do that.”

Cimino’s television career began in 1991, at WROC in Rochester, New York. It was a part-time job with a formidable commute. “I would drive from my home in East Brunswick, New Jersey, on Saturday morning, 365 miles there, do the 6 and 11 o’clock newscasts for Saturday and Sunday, and then drive back on Monday morning.

I got paid $8 an hour to do it, but it was a way to get in. I did that for four or five months — unfortunately, they were winter months, so traveling up there was crazy.”

Cimino says the transition from radio to TV wasn’t particularly difficult. “Television was actually easier, because now you had props.

It was easier to tell the story with pictures and weather maps and satellites and radar.”

Also, Cimino had long been preparing another paving stone for his path to television. “I had my own map in my bedroom as a kid and I would do weather presentations over and over. I used to walk the neighborhood during snowstorms at 11 o’clock and midnight as a teen, and simulate broadcasts of how I would do coverage of a storm.”

After stints in Scranton, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, he joined NBC in New York in 1995.

That’s also when he joined AFTRA, now SAG-AFTRA. “It’s a community of voices that can speak for you and for your concerns. Individuals can get squelched pretty easily, but many voices together — there’s some power and possibility in that.

They provide wonderful health benefits for me and my family at a very affordable rate. As different situations have arisen at the station not only impacting me, but other people — reporters and other people out in the field — I have seen how [SAG-AFTRA] has stepped to the plate for them as well, and that’s why the union is important, and it’s important to be part of it.”

Asked to cite the work he’s proudest of in his career to date, Cimino names two big storms. In January of 1996, his first official weekend at NBC, he was a little bit nervous about forecasting 15-20 inches of snow, but all that and more came out of the sky, and he enjoyed the intensity and excitement of being a part of the station’s team coverage.

He is also proud of helping so many people get out of the path of Hurricane Sandy, but those good feelings are tempered by sadness of the loss of life and the destruction Sandy left behind.

Probably the biggest day-to-day challenge for this broadcaster, husband and father is his schedule. But Cimino emphasizes that the only thing hard about his workday is the very beginning of it. “I get up around 1:45 or 2 a.m. on regular mornings. If there’s a snowstorm, it’s even earlier. But the biggest challenge is waking up. The rest of it is what I want to do.”

— Jeff Spurgeon is a SAG-AFTRA National and New York Local Board member.

NBC NEWS

BROADCAST SPOTLIGHT:

“I had my own map in my bedroom as a kid and I would do weather presentations over and over.”

FALL 2014 // SAG-AFTRA NY //

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Polly Adams Interviews Lynn Cohen

‘I AM A NEW YORK ACTOR’ 6

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ynn Cohen has had an astounding career, spanning decades, and this immensely talented and fearless powerhouse shows no signs of slowing down.

Talking with Lynn is a delight because she is so passionate and joyful about her work and fellow professionals. “I think the actor is the most generous, supportive creature in the world. I know they always talk about actors being backbiting and horribly competitive and so forth, but I’ve never felt more support, encouragement and care than from my fellow actors. Because we’re all in the same boat (always looking for work), and we’re so happy for each other when things go wonderfully well. I want people to know that: Actors really care and support one another,” she said.

How did she come to be an actor? “I’m from Kansas City, an only child whose best friends were imaginary creatures. I was very shy; it was wonderfully comfortable slipping into someone else’s shoes. I could say things through Shakespeare, Chekhov and John Van Druten that I couldn’t say myself.”

She lied about her age when she went away to Massachusetts to do summer stock (they didn’t want 15-year-olds). She did “all those wonderful acting things you do — clean toilets, wash dishes, paint sets. But then, every once in a while, you got to walk on stage and say

LYNN COHEN

real lines. Or you got to be near a real actor and ask 3,000 questions — and they really answered. I just knew I was very happy there.”

She went to Northwestern University, where she studied with the great Alvina Krause, a genius who was strict and took no prisoners. “I’m still a class junkie. It’s such a privilege to work with extraordinary teachers like Ron Van Lieu and Michael Howard, to study Shakespeare with Rob Clare and Patsy Rodenberg. Too many to mention them all. Anytime I’m not working, I’m in class,” she said.

After college, she went back to Kansas City. “They had a full rotating repertory. We ended up doing six plays over a three or four month period — the greatest way to learn how to act. I also did a lot of repertory theater around the country before I ever came to New York,” she said.

I asked how she ended up here. “We always say, ‘Our son went to college and we left home.’ We came about 33 years ago. My husband [Ron Cohen] is a writer, actor and director, a triple threat. The most supportive man in the world, he wants me to work constantly.”

“I just love New York. I’ve never had more support from casting people or fellow actors or theater companies than I’ve had in this city.

Here I have control of my work. If I see a project that I’m interested in, I can reach out to the director, producer, casting director, whomever.

I don’t have to go through 12 people. I also have great agents [at Douglas, Gorman, Rothacker & Wilhelm Talent Agency].”

As she was doing theater in and out of New York City, Lynn also embarked on a prodigious film and television career. She’s received great acclaim and is known to audiences everywhere as Magda in Sex and the City, but is also recognized from Damages, Nurse Jackie, The Hunger Games, multiple Law & Orders, and her brilliant portrayal of Golda Meir in Steven Spielberg’s Munich, just to name a few.

“As for film and TV, I had no ambitions to do them one way or another; I would just go and audition. I think one of the most memorable films that I did early on was Vanya on 42nd Street, first on stage with the amazing Andre Gregory and then as a film with the incredible Louis Malle. We rehearsed it for three years. We did it so many ways that you’d try anything. Once I did it totally in male drag.”

Does she prepare differently for theater, TV or film? “I really don’t, it’s all the same. You know: Who am I? What do I want? How do I go about getting it? I was trained in the Stanislavsky method; the less you do, the more is there. It’s about honing away,” she said.

When asked what her favorite roles were, Lynn said, “There are so many, I don’t have one. Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days (I intend to do that again); the Chekhov roles, all those women; Albee’s The American Dream and Martha in Virginia Woolf.” This year she did stunning work in the widely acclaimed New York production of I Remember Mama.

Which writers and directors have inspired her along the way? “Oh, there’s too many to name them all! There are such masters as Jack O’Brien, Ann Bogart, Jon Jory, John Doyle, Jack Cummings III, Brian Mertes, Melissa Kievman, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Michael Patrick King, Frances Lawrence, Tom McCarthy, Matthew Penn and, again, Andre Gregory and the late Louis Malle. But believe me, the lists go on and on.”

Lynn got her union cards for SAG and AFTRA over 40 years ago.

How important are they to her? “Well, they are everything, aren’t they? The union programs have been fantastic, an integral part of my life. Thanks to SAG-AFTRA, I have health insurance that works. And the residuals program is absolute proof of what a union can do for its

members. There are rules and regulations that would not exist without the union. Plus, every once in a while in this workaday world you run into a sticky situation, and it’s good to have SAG-AFTRA go to bat for you.”

I asked what was the best advice she was ever given. “Work! Don’t sit around and wait for the golden role that’s going to come your way. Work with good people; it’s never any better than the people who are in the room with you. If you’re acting with wonderful, generous, gifted actors, there’s a good chance you’re going to be OK. And it makes your job so much easier,” she said.

She talked about always fighting for the work she wants. “When women get to be a certain age, the roles get leaner, or they put them in a certain category. But even at my age, I want a chance to do sexual roles, or roles where you stand up and fight in courtrooms. I don’t want to be just the old lady dying of Alzheimer’s in the corner.

I feel very strongly about women in theater.

When I was cast as the Porter in the Scottish play in Shakespeare in the Park (thank you, director Moises Kaufman), it opened a door for me. Whether it’s a male, female, dog or cat, if I understand that character, if I think I have something to say with that character, I want a crack at it. A constant inspiration is Olympia Dukakis. I played Ariel to her majestic Prospera.

“The best part of being an actor is the work, being able to do what you’re meant to do in life and being supported in it,” she said. She expressed her immense gratitude for all the professionals she’s worked with along the way, as well as her husband Ron, and her parents back in Missouri. “They weren’t able to become what they always wanted (a doctor and a dancer) because of the Great Depression, so they made sure that I could. They allowed me to go to Massachusetts when I was 15.

They trusted me and knew that I had to do that.”

I know I speak for multitudes who have been thrilled with her performances all these years — we’re so glad that they did — and we can’t wait to see what’s next.

“I just love New York.

I’ve never had more support from casting people or fellow actors or theater companies than I’ve had in this city.”

— Polly Adams is a SAG-AFTRA National and New York Local Board member.

FALL 2014 // SAG-AFTRA NY //

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A Visit to the Lillian Booth Home

By Kevin Scullin

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his past August, New York Local President Mike Hodge and I had the pleasure of visiting the Lillian Booth Actors Home of The Actors Fund in Englewood, New Jersey. Mike and I always look forward to our trips to the Lillian Booth because of two great resources it offers: the facility itself, which is beautiful and well managed, and the residents, seniors who come from all areas of show business and are brimming with great stories and even greater spirits.

Founded as the Actors Home in 1902 and called the Lillian Booth since 2007, the Home is an assisted living and skilled nursing care facility open to individuals who have devoted a major portion of their professional lives to the entertainment industry, regardless of their ability to pay.

It can be a place for long-term convalescent care or for short-term respite care.

SAG-AFTRA members of all categories — not just actors — are eligible to stay there.

Once inside, Mike and I were greeted by Administrator Jordan Strohl, who oversees the care and comfort of 124 residents.

Jordan had arranged interviews with five residents, and we had barely sat down when 91-year-old Bob Evans greeted us carrying his (always an actor) photo and resume. Bob is a veteran song-and-dance man who was Shirley MacLaine’s dance partner in the touring company of The Pajama Game, and he related stories to us about the original productions of Guys and Dolls and Damn Yankees. Bob takes things a little slower these days, but he enjoys the routine and comfort of the Home, and his new residence has reconnected him with actor friends he hasn’t seen since the 1940s.

Our next interview, Dale Whitt, is a sparkplug, but you wouldn’t have said that when he first arrived at the Lillian

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Above, from left, Kevin Scullin, Bob Evans and Mike Hodge; right, residents Carol Skarimbas, Larry Woodward and Joan Stein “get together with music.”

Booth. Dale was first classified as a hospice patient, but since he entered the Home, he has done nothing but improve. He hopes to move from the nursing facility to the assisted living floor soon.

He has nothing but praise for the Home and its staff. “The food here is incredible, and the staff really knows what they are doing.

They’re professional, polite and kind,” he says. He loves his doctors, Dr. Harry Roselle and Dr. Jan Lee, and even has a great roommate, a former cameraman. “I never have to worry about another thing for the rest of my life. My care and living expenses are looked after,” says Dale confidently.

Skipp Lynch, our next interviewee, spoke poignantly about making the transition from self-sufficiency to assisted living. Skipp had gradually been losing his eyesight, and he

he Lillian Booth Actors Home is supported by many generous donors. The Actors Fund currently provides a subsidy of 7 percent of the Home’s $10.3 million operating budget, or $730,000. The Lillian Booth is also supported by the SAG Motion Picture Players Welfare Fund. SAG MPPWF Board Chair and SAG-AFTRA National and New York Board Member Maureen Donnelly said, “We have supported the Lillian Booth Actors Home as well as other programs of The Actors Fund, and the enthusiasm of the trustees for the Home indicates this relationship will continue and grow.”

came to the Lillian Booth directly from a Manhattan apartment that he occupied for almost 40 years. Counseling services are available to residents like Skipp and their families to ease the transition.

Despite being legally blind, Skipp stays active. He’s made many new friends and he sings with a group called Getting Together With Music, which meets every Wednesday.

“When my friends first came to visit, they remarked how much better I looked, mainly because of the amazing facility here at the Lillian Booth. I am not depressed, and time flies beautifully here,” he says.

It turned out that the founder and chief accompanist of Getting Together With Music was our next interview. Joan Stein was a child piano prodigy who, by age 15, found herself playing for the great Art Tatum continues on page 9 >>>

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IVAN LEE

From left, state Senator Brad Hoylman, Bennett Brooks, Rick Brooks, George Brooks, Council member Corey Johnson, former MPTA President Marisa Redanty, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Assembly member Richard Gottfried.

REMEMBERING STAN BROOKS

By Rebecca Damon

PHOTO COURTESY 1010 WINS

at the Majestic Hotel in Cleveland.

Joan considers herself a “utilitarian” pianist; she’s played all kinds of music in venues from concert halls to shady nightclubs. A longtime New Yorker and member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802, Joan says, “I am a union person. I have always seen the union’s tremendous value.”

Her passion for music has informed her stay at the Lillian Booth. Activities have long been a priority at the Home: Residents can participate in painting, arts and crafts, gardening, book of the month club, exercise classes and religious services. When Joan arrived, she felt the musical opportunities could be expanded. She’s a firm believer in music’s therapeutic value. “They were very receptive to making music enhancements to the programs here, and we have become more and more popular,” she says.

Larry Woodward, our final interview, laughs many times during our talk. His energy and vitality are contagious. Larry’s positive attitude helped him through some rough times.

A serious back operation landed him in an “awful” facility on Roosevelt Island. Five men shared one room.

“Thank heaven for Dale Daley at The Actors Fund. He was my staunch advocate and secured me a place at the Lillian Booth. I even have a room with my own bath.” Larry is not alone in praising the Home as an improvement over other facilities. He adds, “The people here — staff, administration — are incredible. I’ve met so many marvelous people, growing together, learning, talking and staying active.

There’s a lot of joy here.”

By the time we left, Mike and I were overwhelmed by what a wonderful resource the Lillian Booth Home is for SAG-AFTRA members and their families. I urge everyone to learn more about the Home at The Actors Fund website (actorsfund.org) and make an appointment to visit. You will experience a great community of fellow professionals and get a glimpse of a benefit you might just need to take advantage of someday.

— Kevin Scullin is a SAG-AFTRA National and New York Local Board member.

S

tan Brooks, the late 1010 WINS reporter, was honored with the naming of the corner of 10th Avenue and 43rd Street as “Stan Brooks Way” on Sept. 12.

Stan and his wife were longtime residents of Manhattan Plaza. Stan died Dec. 23, 2013.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, New York State Assembly member Richard Gottfried, New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman, New York City Council member Corey Johnson, SAG-AFTRA News & Broadcast Membership Liaison Rick Sommers and former Manhattan Plaza Tenants’ Association President Marisa Redanty, along with family, friends and colleagues attended the ceremony. Stan’s sons Bennett, Rick and George unveiled the sign.

“Stan was a gentleman and a class act,” said Council member Johnson. “Throughout his career, he was recognized for his

“Stan Brooks was a good union member and a great New York City asset …

This honor is fitting for one of our SAG-AFTRA radio legends.”

— Mike Hodge

Stan Brooks with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg diligence, professionalism and commitment to high-quality journalism. It’s fitting that today we’re putting his name on the street he lived for many years on, to always remember a man whose name is synonymous with New York radio and journalism,” he said.

“Stan Brooks was a good union member and a great New York City asset,” remarked Mike Hodge, SAG-AFTRA New York Local president. “His 30- to 60-second reports were impactful. He covered everything from the Attica riots to Sept. 11, under every mayor from Lindsay to Bloomberg. Stan kept New Yorkers up to the minute for decades. This honor is fitting for one of our SAG-AFTRA radio legends.”

— Rebecca Damon is a SAG-AFTRA National and New York Local Board member.

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PERSPECTIVE:

F

Alan Gordon

or this edition of Perspective, National and Local Board member Liz Zazzi spoke with American Guild of Musical Artists Executive Director Alan Gordon.

Tell us about AGMA and its members.

The American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO, represents classical singers, ballet dancers, stage directors and stage managers in the United States and, in partnership with Actors’ Equity, also represents the fashion model members of The Model Alliance, a formative, nationwide labor advocacy group.

AGMA doesn’t “organize” in the traditional union sense. We don’t attempt to convince singers or dancers to join. Rather, when a non-member asks us why it’s good to belong, we simply tell them to ask any AGMA member. Once a performer works in an AGMA opera or ballet house after working non-union, they immediately recognize the protections available under an AGMA contract, and they seek out our representation. Despite a nationwide decrease in union membership over the past decade, AGMA’s membership has continued to grow steadily at a rate of 5-7 percent every year.

AGMA is an entirely open union. Membership in AGMA is available to artists at any time in their careers, and the only criteria for getting an AGMA job is talent.

What drew you to a career in labor?

I’ve been at AGMA for 14 years, after 26 with the DGA. Prior to that, I worked for the Textile Workers Union at the tail end of the “Norma Rae” era, when being a union lawyer in the deep South meant frequent police harassment and the occasional threat of real anti-union violence. Like many others in the labor movement, growing up, mine was a union household, my father an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. After first working for the presiding justice of the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, I’ve worked exclusively for unions for the past 42 years.

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How is AGMA unique?

What distinguishes AGMA from other entertainment unions is the fact that we function almost exclusively in the notfor-profit world, and compensation is often a secondary issue in many of our contract negotiations.

Apart from the relatively brief periods of adversarial negotiations, AGMA is the symbiotic, working partner of the companies that employ our members.

It’s important to us that while protecting our members’ interests, we also protect the fiscal viability of their nonprofit employers. Thus, as I’ve said, compensation is not usually the key element of our negotiations. In ballet, for example, it’s much more important to secure meaningful protections against injurycausing overwork. Once a dancer rehearses or performs for more than three hours, injuries skyrocket. And in opera, with a 10 a.m.-untilmidnight workday the norm, it’s crucial to create work rules that avoid excessive strain on, and damage to, vocal chords.

What are some of the toughest challenges AGMA has faced?

On two occasions, unusual for the nonprofit world, AGMA has been faced with all-out attacks on union representation of performing artists. In 2005, when the Washington Ballet dancers sought AGMA representation, the Ballet’s board of directors tried literally to starve the dancers into submission.

Similarly, in the recent Metropolitan Opera negotiations, opera management essentially declared war on its unionized performers in an attempt to negatively restructure labor relations and decimate decades-old contracts.

AGMA’s leadership and its members understood what was ultimately at stake in both battles, and committed the union’s entire

resources to the struggle, both times beating back the attacks.

For the moment, the assaults on AGMA-represented performers have been unambiguously crushed, and future negotiations, even if characterized by hard bargaining, should be less contentious.

But, as the current lock-out at the Atlanta Symphony makes clear, the fight to assure union representation of performing artists is never over. And the lesson for us is that complacency and lack of constant vigilance is the enemy of organized labor, even in an intensely unionized environment.

How important is it for unions to support one another?

Traditionally, in both opera and ballet houses, a not-always-pleasant rivalry has existed between the chorus and the orchestra, with each trying to do better than the other.

An unexpected consequence of the Met’s recent attack on its unions, however, has been to unify the two bargaining units in a previously unimaginable bond to combat a common enemy, a successful unity of spirit and purpose that can spread to other venues where both unions function.

What excites you about the future?

The Model Alliance. Fashion models are treated today like ballet dancers were treated decades ago: never thought of as workers, cheated, abused, unprotected, fungible victims of opaque accounting. Often children when signed to unbreakable, long-term contracts and unprotected by the laws that cover most unionized performers, several hundred models have become sufficiently self-empowered to fight for their inherent rights. Because it’s often impossible to determine the identity of their real employer, they’re treated as independent contractors instead of employees, so it’s impossible at the moment for them to actually unionize. In the interim, however, along with Actors’ Equity, AGMA works with the Alliance to combat all forms of sexual, age, drug, accounting and contractual abuse. Far removed from the world of “big labor,” working with The Model Alliance has been a refreshing reminder of true grass-roots trade unionism.

Beau Dasher

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

Counsel, Financial Assurances

By John Metaxas

B

eau Dasher has the kind of name that conjures up a leading man,

but the SAG-AFTRA in-house lawyer says he’s content to be the man behind the scenes. As counsel of financial assurances in the union’s New York office, Dasher and his three L.A.-based colleagues play a crucial role in making sure SAG-AFTRA actors get paid the money they are due under their theatrical and TV contracts.

Asian-American Filmmakers Luncheon Adam Moore, right, SAG-AFTRA national director of EEO & Diversity, interviewed writer/director J.P. Chan at the 2014 Asian American International Film Festival’s Filmmaker Luncheon, hosted by SAG-AFTRA on July 25. Chan, whose film A Picture of You opened this summer, encouraged AsianAmerican filmmakers to take the initiative in telling their own stories. For the second year in a row, this luncheon, held at 1900 Broadway, brought together filmmakers from the festival for networking, education and creative support.

Dasher, a University of Miami Law School graduate, joined legacy SAG in 2011 as a business rep in L.A. While he already had three years of experience doing complex commercial litigation, he says the business rep experience was crucial. “It was a great starting place to learn the contracts and industrial terms,” he says. Dasher learned quickly, and when the opportunity came to move up to the counsel position, he grabbed it and moved to New York. “I’m one of the lucky few to work in both major offices,” he says.

Dasher is responsible for reviewing independent film projects in New York.

He gets his agenda from the very same business reps from whose ranks he graduated, and whom he now spends substantial time training. As they refer films to him, he researches the corporate documents, peeling back layers of financial structures to determine which entity should provide guarantees in the event of a default. Beau will then negotiate with banks and other financial institutions to make sure those guarantees are in place. “In many cases we take liens on films, and if there is a default on a residual payment, we may be able to foreclose on the film and get the actors their money. My goal is that if I do my job properly, and there is a default, it can quickly be resolved. We try to prevent contract issues from arriving at litigation. Litigation is very draining,” he adds.

If members have questions regarding payments, they should contact the appropriate contracts department to assist with filing a claim if necessary. If a claim has already been referred to the Legal Department, members can reach out to the attorney handling the matter.

As to how Dasher got that theatrical name, he explains, “My parents went to see the movie 10 with Bo Derek when my mom was pregnant with me. She commented that Bo might be a nice name for a girl. My father replied that Beau would be a great name for a boy too.” And so, Beau Dasher was named.

As for ever performing himself, he says “I’d rather be behind the scenes, helping our members do what they love to do. That’s what makes me happy.”

– John Metaxas is a SAG-AFTRA New York Local Board member.

Chair of the New York Local Conservatory and New York Local Board member Verania Kenton, left, with casting director Christine Nelson

Conservatory’s New Season Begins More classes, new teachers, new equipment, more seminars, more workshops — more for our members! Casting director Christine Nelson’s seminar Background, Foreground, Bumps and Beyond was a huge success. Topics: Casting, booking the job, working on set, professionalism, what to expect, what gets you noticed, how to stay on the casting director’s radar and do’s and don’ts. Whether you work background, principal, VO, singer, dancer, audiobooks, etc., we have you covered. Discover the best deal in town. Join online or stop by 1900 Broadway, 5th floor. Show up and stay in the know.

FALL 2014 // SAG-AFTRA NY //

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Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage

PAID

New York, NY Permit No. 9313

1900 Broadway, 5th Floor New York, NY 10023

SAGAFTRA.org/NY

REMINDER! Don’t Miss The New York Local Fall Membership Meeting Hear updates from elected leaders and staff. Get advice from industry guests.

WHEN: 5 – 8 p.m., Monday, Oct. 27, 2014 WHERE: DGA Theater, 110 West 57th St.

(between 6th and 7th Avenues)

SAVE THE DATE! The SAG-AFTRA NY Host Committee is pleased to announce this special upcoming event.

Museum of the Moving Image Friends and Family Day Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Visit SAGAFTRA.org/NY for details.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

This meeting is only open to paid-up SAG-AFTRA members in good standing. Unfortunately, no guests allowed. Parents/guardians of young performers under 18 years old are welcome. No RSVP necessary.

SAG-AFTRA members, please bring your membership card (paid through Oct. 31, 2014) for admittance.

If you require ADA accommodations, please let us know by contacting (212) 827-1542 or diversity@sagaftra.org.

FILM SOCIETY The NY SAG-AFTRA/WGAE Film Society still has memberships available.

If you are interested in joining, go to SAGAFTRA.org/NY, click on New York Film Society in the left column and download an application, or stop by the SAG-AFTRA office at 1900 Broadway and pick one up.