In this panel excerpt, industry professionals discuss the challenges of working with the myriad of Broadway unions—approximately 13 distinct bodies—each with its own rules, contract terms, and negotiation cycles. They explain how producers must learn to “dance” through varying union regulations to minimize cost impacts, noting that some unions are collaborative while others are rigid. Contracts typically last three to five years and are renegotiated through the Broadway League with outside counsel. The conversation highlights the labor‑intensive nature of Broadway productions, where weekly operating costs encompass a wide range of staff—from stagehands and musicians to ushers and cleaners—making constant vigilance over contract changes essential to avoid costly errors. Overall, the speakers emphasize the importance of strategic negotiation, ongoing cost monitoring, and deep knowledge of union agreements to keep productions financially viable.
How do you work with the unions to try to come up with a solution that hopefully benefits everybody?
Oh, it varies by union. Some unions are more antagonistic or aggressive about implementation of rules and costs and expenditures, but you learn over time, and part of our experience is learning the best way to dance through those rules with the least cost implication. And you're dealing with, what is it, 13 different unions on Broadway, none of which have the same rules. So you're trying to walk the line of least damage between all the rules of the various unions so that it costs less, it's the most efficient it can be out of a model that doesn't operate very well. When there are union issues, again, certain unions are very approachable and will work with you to try and figure out the best solutions. Other ones will just say, that's it. And then of course, every— the contracts for every union only lasts anywhere from 3 to 5 years. So you go through a regular negotiation period, the kind of industry organization that handles that for Broadway is the Broadway League, and so they help to negotiate those collective bargaining agreements along with outside counsel.
What you're really doing is not only saving them dollars but also headaches with that. It's a matter of doing this every day, and as Carl mentioned, these agreements change. First of all, there are different agreements for each of the unions. Some of them have similar rules, some of them don't. It is a constant effort just to keep up on all of that. We ask each other sometimes, do you remember that rule? What was that rule? Is that changed? Did that change last night? And I'll still be going by something, by an old contract, and Carl goes, no, no, no, no, they changed that. And there's cost implications every time there's a— we're a labor-intensive business. We're an extraordinarily labor-intensive business. That's why we look at what our weekly operating costs are, because unlike the television movie, you have production costs. Once it's done, you know, there may be royalties involved, there may be talent residuals involved. It's really about marketing and distribution. Your production costs are done. When we do a show on Broadway, those people, if it's a big musical, You could be looking at 100 people coming into the theater between stagehands, musicians, actors, wardrobe, hair people, not considering the people in the staff of the theater—ushers, ticket takers, porters, stage doormen, cleaners—and all of those bodies collect a salary every week. So it's an enormous task to know the ins and outs of that. Somebody believes they can come in off of the street and produce a show and understand all of the cost implications, God bless.
And also, I would put it this way, it's the same idea that would you want somebody to come in and be the creative captain of the ship, the director of the show, say a musical you're producing for $12 million on Broadway, who had never directed a show before, who didn't know how the chorus needs to interact, how the transitions need to happen between scenes, you know, how to keep the direction lively so that it entertains an audience. Well, in the same way, we're there to direct the business side of the organization. And as you get into the production of the show and you're spending 16 hours a day putting this show together and all of your employees are coming in and it's the massive amount of expenditure per hour going out, do you want somebody who hasn't had the experience of, well, here's how we solve these problems because I've done it 20 times before, and this is the best way to play that out. Or do you want to trust somebody who's never done it before and has no idea what the implications of any decision are? So that's why, again, you want to hire people who are at the top of their game, who are regularly involved in the process.
