When I grow up I want to be a... stagehand - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Kuan · #1 12-27-2010, 08:10 PM

Not just any stagehand of course. I want to be a stagehand at Carnegie Hall.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/68164552.html?page=all

Quote:

Ahearn: For backstage labor, rich rewards
Sunday, November 1, 2009
By JAMES AHEARN
RECORD COLUMNIST

"The last thing I want to do is upset the people at Carnegie Hall. I'd like to have a lifelong relationship with them."

MY WIFE and I have season tickets for events at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. At intermissions, we sometimes watch absently as three or four men in gray suits emerge from the wings to move a piano into place or bring out extra music stands and chairs.

What they do is essential but unremarkable. Turns out that it is remarkably well-paid, however. Would you believe $422,599 a year? Plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation?

That is what a fellow named Dennis O'Connell makes at Carnegie Hall. He is the props manager, the highest-paid stagehand.

Four other guys, two of them carpenters, two electricians, are paid somewhat lesser amounts, ranging down to $327,257, plus $76,459 in benefits and deferred compensation, for the junior member of the team, John Goodson, an electrician.

The New York Times broke this story last week. The reporter, Daniel J. Wakin, got it from a publicly available document, Carnegie Hall's tax return for the 2007-08 season.

The hall was legally obliged to disclose the pay of the chief executive, Clive Gillinson, and the names and pay of the next five highest-paid employees. All five were stagehands.

Gillinson, who doubles as artistic director, was paid $946,581, nearly twice as much as O'Connell, the props manager, but not out of line for top arts executives in Manhattan.

The Carnegie stagehands' pay was something else again, but not, as it turns out, unique. At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.

To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.

Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay.

How to account for all this munificence? The power of a union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "Power," as in the capacity and willingness to close most Broadway theaters for 19 days two years ago when agreement on a new contract could not be reached.

toomany MBZ · #2 12-28-2010, 06:48 AM

You'd have to pay that much to live anywhere near there.

Kuan · #3 12-28-2010, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomany MBZ

You'd have to pay that much to live anywhere near there.

$100k won't get you by?

kerry · #4 12-28-2010, 09:01 AM

Wonder what it would take for the local union leader to head up Colorado's teacher's union?

Pooka · #5 12-28-2010, 02:22 PM

Producers don't have to pay this. They can just take their show to the other Carnegie Hall.

The Producers main problem is that there is no other Carnegie Hall.

Stagehands might earn roughly $8,600 a week, but what about the performers?

Try $120,000 a week. That is about the average.

Besides, a theater stage can be a deadly place. Before the Unions took over and made safety the key it was not unusual for a light to drop on someone or a sandbag. Or a light could overheat, or, in the case of a Limelight, catch something on fire and kill lots of people. These things did happen by accident in the 1800's. They don't happen now.

The above money, by the way, is only made if there is a show in progress. When there is not stagehands are paid nothing. Carnegie Hall almost always has something going, so those guys are almost always working. It is not so with other Union members.

It is all relative. If you have a hit everyone makes money. If you have a flop you are out on the street.

That's showbiz.

MTI · #6 12-28-2010, 02:40 PM

My son is stage manager for an opera company . . . no money, but he gets to go to great parties.

Pooka · #7 12-28-2010, 05:16 PM

From what I have seen your son's position is the norm.

But... It can lead to greater things. There was once a fellow that was an Usher at the Kaleta Humphreys Theater in Dallas, which is a small and high-art kind of place, that wound up going to Harvard and decided he wanted to be in show-business.

I wonder what Tommy Lee Jones is doing these days?

MTI · #8 12-28-2010, 05:29 PM

True enough, he got to be an "extra" on an upcoming "Hawaii 5-0" episode. Apparently, they paid him to play a video game in the background of a scene all day. That may be the extent of "greater things"

mgburg · #9 12-28-2010, 06:19 PM

I worked with the local in the Fox River Valley (Fond du Lac/Oshkosh/Neenah-Menasha/Green Bay) area back in the 70s/80s. The money was great (about 3-4 X's what I was getting paid for my regular 8/5/52 job. The hours were long and staggered. The things you did required quick thinking, heavy lifting and teamwork. Slip up on one or all and people would get hurt fast and seriously. You always had to anticipate the unpredictable. If you didn't, you'd get slapped upside the head in a wink of an eye. You didn't each when you wanted, you WAITED 'til you were told you could and then, you only had XX minutes/seconds to get it done.

And when you were done, you felt like you gave it your all and that, in itself, was the bonus to the check.

I didn't get to join that particular local...had to more with my 8/5/52 job and where I ended up didn't have openings for new blood.

Time moves on and the youngsters get the breaks.

barry123400 · #10 12-29-2010, 12:43 PM

Stage hands have a union if it still exists.I was a member of the canadian branch for several years until they were voted out of the canadian broadcasting corporation.

IATSE is a mob originated and controlled union going a long way back in time. This situation is well above union scale in my opinion. Sounds like some form of scam.

el presidente · #11 12-29-2010, 01:39 PM

Always working nights and weekends....that would kinda suck.

tbomachines · #12 12-29-2010, 01:47 PM

carnegie hall is pretty much the pinnacle of that field. I'm not surrprised at the figures one bit, those people are probably the best they have to offer (most can go to college and study for it) and any theater geek would LOVE to have that job (including me). I think it would be fun and well worth the hard work to get to that point, imagine all the great productions you can be part of too. BTW I wish I earned 1/10th that

Pooka · #13 12-29-2010, 01:50 PM

Michael Caine once said that you do not have to go to Hollywood or New York to be in the theater, but if you wish to make it big in show business you do.

You can be involved in theater anywhere you care to show up. It is fun and you can get involved at any level your talent will take you to.

I know a lady that started out as a fill-in extra, a 'spear carrier' as they used to be called, who then went on to Produce a community theater production which led to a small part on a locally produced TV show.

Then she picked up a few commercials and small film roles. She tried her hand at writing and now has one Screenplay in pre-production and two more under option.

The time it took to get from the starting point to now? Right at 25 years, but then she was just doing it part-time.

It can happen.

sfloriII · #14 12-29-2010, 04:47 PM

I've worked on lots of hotel/ stadium type events. Most of those grips don't get anything like this pay. I'm thinking most of them are getting about $400/ day or so.

Must be the union benefit. One reason why the economy is in the toilet....