(Reuters, the Guardian, Oct 1, 2025.)
Healthcare is a central issue in the ongoing negotiations between the Actors’ Equity union and the Broadway League
Broadway actors are preparing to walk off the stage in a strike that would shut down 32 stage productions as theater attendance approaches its peak season, according to their union.
Actors’ Equity, a union that represents 900 current Broadway performers and stage managers, said it has yet to reach agreement on a new labor contract with the Broadway League, the trade association that represents theater owners, producers and operators. Negotiations continue, though the three-year contract ended on 28 September.
A central issue in bargaining is healthcare and the contribution the Broadway League makes to the union’s healthcare fund.
Al Vincent Jr, executive director and lead negotiator for Actors’ Equity, said the union is asking Broadway’s employers to increase their contribution to the healthcare fund, which is projected to fall into a deficit by next May.
The rate of contributions has been unchanged for more than a decade, even as smaller regional theaters in Kansas and Idaho oftentimes pay more, Vincent said.
“Asking our employers to care for our bodies, and to pay their fair share toward our health insurance is not only reasonable and necessary, it’s an investment they should want to make toward the long-term success of their businesses,” Brooke Shields, Actors’ Equity’s president, said in a statement to Reuters, adding that she tore her meniscus on a Broadway show and continued dancing on it, “painfully”, for three months.
“That’s just math. There are no Broadway shows without healthy Broadway actors and stage managers. And there are no healthy actors and stage managers without safe workplaces and stable health insurance.”
The Broadway League issued a statement saying it continues to work toward an agreement.
