[Opinion] Orchestra Strike on Broadway

$5 for actors, $6.9 for stage engineers, $11.2 for advertising…. It is a breakdown of the $100 royal seat people buy to watch Broadway musical `Mama Mia.` Engineers working behind the scene to build a spectacular set earn more than actors and actresses singing and dancing before the audience. Not a small portion of money goes to advertising to lure tourists from the around the world. It is all about art appealing to the public, sophisticated technology and marketing, which represent American culture perfectly. It is orchestra players who take the smallest portion of $2 or so. Then who claims the largest portion? It is nor a writer nor a producer. It is investors who according to the New York Times earn $24.75 for every ticket sold.

The lights on Broadway streets are not bright these days. Of the 18 big-name shows such as `Mama Mia,` `Lion King` and `the Phantom of Opera,` `Cabaret` is the only one that is still on stage. The rest have all bowed out on March 7. The collective shutdown came after producers announced a plan to cut the number of orchestra members by half and instead use high-tech computer sound. The decision provoked orchestra members, and the actors association and the stage engineers association joined the strike out of fellowship. In a nutshell, it is a battle over money.

Neither producers nor players, however, make any mention of `money` explicitly. They are too proud to do so. They stress that the decision is an encroachment on the right to artistic work, while producers say that the insistence on hiring a certain number of players is a challenge to their right to creative work. It also all comes down to economics both for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who tried to arbitrate the standoff to no avail, and people in the Apple City. Musical shows are a major revenue source in the city`s tourism industry, which makes $4 billion every year. The walkout will also deal a blow to restaurants, hotels and taxis. If it continues thought the weekend, some $50 million is estimated to be lost.

The strike on Broadway, however, carries some symbolic meaning – art and humans begin to be replaced by computers and technology. As the producers argue, computer sound makes as good sound as live performances. Orchestra members, who insist that live performances continue while the world is fast changing, remind us of the Luddite Movement, sabotage against machines, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. No one suggests that orchestra play for Metropolitan operas should be replaced by machine sound. As such, the orchestra members on Broadway must be armed with a higher level of artistic performances. It seems that now we live in a world, where without putting human touch on work, no one can survive in the workplace.