When it’s what the playwright writes for them and instructs them to read, they do.
Do you have an objection to actors performing the script they have been given? Should the actor have refused to read the lines that were written for him?
You’re actually partially correct about how it’s handled. It’s a massive PITA for everyone involved.
Generally, they’ll bring them in late, after everyone is already seated & the lights are down, and leave early, before the lights are brought up & other people start getting up to go. The theater is generally cool enough that they’ll hold the curtain for entrances, but there’s not much they can do for exits.
The logistics of it make doing it in total secrecy impossible (not to mention that they’re generally invited guests of the show), but they try to do it as quietly as they can.
That said, we’re also dealing with theaters so the logistics are somewhat tricky. You have to work around the available seats–you’ll have a huge problem on your hands if you tell people who bought their ideal tickets months out “Sorry, we’re commandeering these seats”–which will often eliminate the boxes from consideration and put you on the main floor (which is where you’ll most often find reserved/guest seats). That alone kills any secrecy you may have had among the audience–by the first intermission, the entire theater will know who exactly is there and where their seats are.
Keeping it a secret from the theater itself is just flat out impossible. There’s no way for the security to work without the theater’s help. Even if it’s not an invitation scenario & you keep it hush-hush with regard to non-essential theater personnel, the cast will still find out like the rest of the audience.
Essentially, this is a long winded way of saying that you can keep the “who” quiet until they enter–“Secret Service protectee” narrows it down, but it doesn’t provide an exact answer (and, even then, the average layman wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Secret Service protectee & a Bureau of Diplomatic Security protectee). But there’s no real way for them to enter the theater without someone in the audience seeing them–and once one person knows, it won’t take long for everyone to know.
Of course, that also ignores the reality of the press corps, who’ll give it away with no problem. Seriously, look up the steps that Secret Service & Air Force personnel had to take to keep President Bush’s Thanksgiving trip quiet–and that was from a closed hangar on a closely guarded Air Force base to a foreign country. Domestically and in public–forget about it.
Basically, as a TL;dr: there’s no possible way for this stuff to be done 100% clandestinely. Between security protocol, theater logistics, & the 24 hour news cycle, the locations of our top level federal officials are known to a lot of people & plenty of them can’t (and won’t) keep that secret.
“Hamilton” is the hottest show on Broadway, and even same day tickets are essentially claimed days in advance. People who get the chance to go take advantage of it.
He went because he could. There’s really nothing else to that.
I have to disagree entirely. During the show, you’re reading from the script. After the show, you’re assumed to be speaking on your behalf, unless you say otherwise.
That’s why BC/EFA speeches are as powerful as they are–you’re hearing from the actors themselves, not a character who exists only on paper.
In this case, the actors made no qualms about whose behalf they were speaking on. Talking about it like it was “just part of the script” does them & their message a great disservice. Also, if it was “part of the script”, Equity would be pissed.
Probably not. I’d assume he was an invited guest. I’d also assume that the Secret Service didn’t have tickets, except maybe a couple of agents who might have had seats. I don’t know how much you know about “Hamilton”, but if he got his tickets “like normal people”, he would’ve done so by either standing in line for days on end or paying a homeless person to do it for him. But even that’s not “like normal people”, because “normal people”, on average, don’t have the money needed for even standing room tickets.
To put “Hamilton” in perspective: most people plan a trip to NYC & opt to see a show while they’re in town. With “Hamilton”, people book their trip to NYC (airfare, hotels, etc.) around whatever tickets they’re able to get. If you’re talking about any other show and someone says “I got my tickets, now I just need to figure out my flight & hotel”, they’d be judged as being unable to balance their priorities–with “Hamilton”, that’s just the norm.
As for extra space & other people’s time, I’d assume he took up the same amount as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, & Joe Biden when they saw the show. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sought an invitation, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if one was extended to him.
With regard to him listening to what they had to say, reports do indicate that he did so, but, as I mentioned above, it’s easier for everyone if they come in late and leave early. Otherwise the audience gets held even longer & it’s a whole big thing that nobody likes dealing with.
Basically, when someone with that security level goes to see a show like this, the audience isn’t leaving the vicinity of their seat until that person is off the premises. The “please remain at your seats” comes over the PA and the ushers (and police) enforce it. Leaving early cuts down on that wait (and is a common practice that would’ve been known to this cast).
Why they chose to do this when they knew he’d be on his way out the door, through no choice of his own & with no power to stay to listen (Secret Service calls those shots, the protectee has 0 veto power over those decisions) is beyond me, but apparently he did pause to hear what they had to say.
The facts are not in dispute here. The statement was written by the play’s creator. Are you saying the actor should have refused to read the lines that were written for him?
I’m saying you have a great lack of understanding of the union rules that govern stage actors.
The words were written by the playwright, but the actors contributed to their message and the single actor who read them chose to do so.
They aren’t a script in the theater sense of the word. There was no obligation to read them & anyone who wanted to refuse to do so was free to make that decision with no danger of losing his or her job.
I never said what I think they should or shouldn’t have done, but if none of them wanted to read them, then they wouldn’t have been read. If anyone tried to make an unwilling actor read them with the language you’re using here, Equity would be all over their ass. Heck, even if they just talked about it the way you’re talking about it, the union would get quite mad. Equity takes things like the question the actor’s time vs the playwright’s/theater’s time incredibly seriously & even suggesting that the script continue after curtain would be a really bad idea.
Aside from the potential for notes, an actor’s job is done when the show’s over. Trying to change that, even with a few sentences, would cause Equity’s hellfire to rain down upon you.
It’s not “just part of the script”. They weren’t forced to read those words. They chose to do it. Anything short of that & Equity would be screaming bloody murder.
Forgive me for not being intimately familiar with union bylaws, but it seems to me that the production is over when the producer says it is.
If there exists some rule that forbids the production from continuing beyond some point in time that is defined as being “curtain”, over which the people who have written, produced, and directed the play have no power to change, please elucidate.
Yeah, wouldn’t it be great if the boss got to decide when your workday was over & your union had no say in the matter?
I’m sure you can understand how, outside the realm of theater, such a suggestion is utterly ridiculous–limiting the workday period & defining who exactly works when is part of the whole point of unions. If anyone even tries to push you to work so much as an extra second on a union job, the union steps in.
The same goes for theater actors. Their boss can’t arbitrarily extend their workday beyond that which was contractually agreed–and shows end at curtain.
I don’t even know why you want to defend this by saying “it was just part of the script” when that weakens their entire point. The actor was speaking as himself, on behalf of the show’s entire team. It doesn’t matter that he did it by reading a prepared statement or who wrote the statement & limiting it in such a way does a disservice to their message.
Feel free to reach out to any of them & they’ll tell you the same thing I am: it wasn’t part of the script. They had every right not read it & did so because they chose to. As with BC/EFA, that’s where its power comes from: they’re talking as real people, as themselves, not as characters. It being a prepared statement doesn’t change that.
Does yours not?
Because I can’t recall a single time in my job where I’ve been expected to work late and the union stopped it from happening.
And who decides when “curtain” is, if not the playwright? I wouldn’t want to attend a play where Act III gets cut because the union says the show has to be over by 9:30.
For the umpteenth time, it wasn’t a lecture. Sheesh.
There is no such rule in society or the theater or in politics. You are inventing rules of society and etiquette out of thin air to protect a political office holder from a member of the public’ speaking his or her mind about public affairs.
Our political leaders don’t have some sort of force field against direct political speech when they are in public. It is simply not true that some kind of line was crossed.
It’s shocking how there are people who want to give the new administration some degree of monarchical privilege. That’s the kind of deference that Trump has been demanding and is exactly the kind of deference he must be refused.
“Shut up and sing!”
You mean trying to make space for actors who might otherwise never get to see or perform in roles like this? Wow, some discrimination and exclusion. You do realize there’s a reason it’s less bad to give a “white” role to a minority than vice-versa, right? It has to do with the fact that there are fuck-all roles for minorities.
When it’s this kind of piddly shit? Yes, yes I will. Oh you poor dear, you got excluded from a broadway play because you’re white and they wanted to have a bunch of non-white actors. Good thing it won’t be hard to find a role in literally any other production or movie.
Pence is not a private citizen. He’s the vice president-elect of the united states.
He’s also not just any vice president-elect.
What is this “political lecture” you’re getting lathered up about? They basically asked Pence to do the job he was elected to do - represent ALL the American people.
Which, as a Hoosier who has had Pence for 4 years as governor I has strong reservations of his ability to do that. He has been quite clear in the past that he puts being Christian above all other things and he’s demonstrated that he is quite will to lose jobs and money in order to promote his brand of Christianity. You can practice any religion you want as long it doesn’t bother, inconvenience, or is even too visible to Christians but Christians can enshrine their customs and beliefs into laws everyone else has to follow whether they’re Christian or not. Homosexuals need to be re-programmed to be heterosexual. Transsexuals need to be re-programmed to be happy in the body they were born with (unless they’re intersex, then they have to be happy with whatever body a surgeon tried to given them just after birth). That is Pence’s actual track record. With the last two I can certainly see why various members of Hamilton are concerned.
I don’t belong to a union. I’ve never worked at a union job. (Not that I’m opposed to unions, I just never took a job where a union was an option) Most people in the US don’t belong to a union. So this notion that a union “has a say” in one’s working conditions or length of workday is meaningless to a large portion of the US. I’m assuming you do work a union job and have most of your life since you seem unaware of this fact.
Yes, there are jobs where your day isn’t over until the boss says it’s over (with a fig leaf of protection provided by US labor law). There are even jobs where if the next shift doesn’t show up you now have to work THEIR workday on top of your own.
It should be noted that MIKE PENCE himself has said:
- He was not at all offended,
- He really loved the show, and
- With regards to the statement, it’s a free country and people can say what they please.
If Pence was not offended, there is nothing to apologize for.
Here’s the “harangue” written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, director Thomas Kail & producer Jeffrey Seller (with, apparently, input by some of the cast). They had advance warning of Pence’s attendance, since the entrance of his entourage just before curtain & their exit before anyone else could leave their seats had to be arranged for security purposes.
I don’t care for Pence but his response seems civilized. Trump remains ridiculous. Here’s the latest Tweet:
What’s the point of being a rich New Yorker if you haven’t seen Hamilton yet?
By the way, why isn’t anyone demanding an apology from Trump for saying that people think Hamilton “highly overrated?”
Seems to me that this comment is libelous. It’s factually untrue - it has universal acclaim, as Pence will attest to - and it is intended to maliciously attack the target. Maybe the producers should sue Trump.
Trump is entitled to his (wrong) opinion. If he had said “Hamilton is not a successful musical,” that would make him a (bigger) idiot.
People say Stephen King and (speaking of theatre) Andrew Lloyd Webber are highly overrated, but damned if they are not successful.
Could have been worse. In Beyond The Fringe Peter Cook had a sketch in which he impersonated Harold MacMillan. MacMillan turned up one night and was enjoying the sketch when Cook departed from the script and took a decidedly mocking tone while staring directly at MacMillan. And then there’s what happened to John Prescott at the Brit Awards.
Frankly Pence receiving a polite entreaty from the cast of *Hamilton *is only an issue for those desperate to pretend that Trump opponents are just as bad as Trump himself.
Seriously. I thought the speech was condescending and not entirely appropriate, but I would never ask for an apology over it.
Trump’s pettiness is just so off-putting. “Apologize!” Come on, man. How can you let the cast of a Broadway play get in your head like that? If everyone just carried on with their lives like normal grown-ups this story would have been gone in an hour.
I’m doing no such thing. My position has nothing to do with politics. I object to any audience member being called out by name like this. They did not consent to become part of the show. It is rude to treat an audience member this way.
Pretty much agree with that. I thought it was rude and grandstanding, but certainly within their rights. I thought that Pence should be enough of a big boy to be able to take (and it appears he did). I thought that Trump was being a whiny little bitch (nod to Bill Maher for that) as is usual.