"Bought Peace"

"We've done great damage which must be repaired," said Actor Tom Bosley (Fiorello!). "Let us hope the public will forgive us." Few of the actors crowded into Manhattan's grubby St. Nicholas Arena felt that contrite. Actress Maureen Stapleton (Toys in the Attic) rushed weeping to the microphone and announced irrelevantly: "This union is my family and my life." The Actors Equity meeting had convened to ratify a settlement of Broadway's week-long theater blackout. Each side claimed victory, but each side had been hurt. Producers toted up losses of over $1,000,000; Equity owed its 741 locked-out members close to $90,000 in per-diem allowances.

Prominent in arranging the settlement was manicured Moss Hart, who treated the combatants like the petulant children they were. Surreptitiously, Playwright-Director Hart herded the negotiating teams into separate rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel ("The producers had air-conditioning and a view of the street," pointed out an Equity spokesman), lectured them gently, ran messages. In 14 hours the deadlock was broken. Terms of the Moss-backed compromise:

P: A weekly minimum pay raise of $7.50 for actors in the first year of a four-year contract, increasing to $14 by 1963. Equity had demanded an immediate $11.50 boost. Minimum rehearsal pay was raised from $75 to $82.50 a week, will reach $97.50 by 1963.

P: A six-year pension plan, with producers contributing 1% of the actors' payroll in the first year, 3% by the third. Equity had asked 4% by 1965.

Producers quickly soothed theatergoers' fears by suggesting that increased costs could be absorbed in current budgets, without hiking already exorbitant ($9.90 top) ticket prices. But this week, as theater marquees flashed on, ticket offices were swamped with orders, and cabs were once again as scarce as Sunday matinees, Elder Statesman Hart was strikingly pessimistic. "This is a bought peace, on both sides. The issues have merely been swept under the rug. The theater is desperately ill; nobody realizes how shaky it is."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.