Striking Hollywood writers who have thrown the US entertainment industry into turmoil will put down their picket placards for one night next month to allow Broadway’s theatre community its moment in the sun. Under an agreement reached this week with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the Tony awards will be broadcast. But failing a settlement in the interim, the event is expected to go ahead without a formal introduction or any scripted patter to join up the razzle-dazzle of acceptance speeches and musical numbers.
The union’s beef is with Hollywood film studios, not New York theatres. But in an unintended consequence, one of Broadway’s biggest stars, Lin‑Manuel Miranda – whose musical Hamilton won 11 Tonys in 2016 – withdrew from delivering the introduction in solidarity with his fellow writers. That may ring bells for UK football fans, who recently watched matches shorn of commentary due to Gary Lineker’s standoff with the BBC.
The strike has pitted the union’s 11,500 screenwriters against Hollywood giants old and new, ranging from Paramount and Walt Disney, to Netflix and Amazon. Earlier this year, the WGA released data revealing that the median weekly pay for writer-producers had declined by 23% over the last decade when adjusted for inflation, while studio profits had soared by 39%.
Though its British counterpart, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, is not directly involved in the action, it has advised its members to abide by the boycott of writing under US contracts if they want to work in Hollywood again. The Society of Authors has also pledged its support.
The WGA wields a power far greater than the size of its membership would suggest. A 100-day strike in 2007 is estimated to have cost the California economy $2.1bn (£1.7bn) in lost productions and belt-tightening by writers, actors and producers.
Its current action is a battle for a share in a future that is being carved up by big corporations. Though productions contracted in Europe and Britain are not affected – fans of Doctor Who and Peaky Blinders can rest assured that filming is going ahead – the outcome of the strike will be noted wherever there are film and television industries. The WGA is right to say that writers face “an existential threat”: the push towards casualisation, and the resulting erosion of rights and incomes that was already hitting all but the starry few, is now being accelerated by the arrival of AI.
This is not only a problem for writers themselves, but for anyone involved in a global industry that is in a febrile state of health anyway. After an unexpected post-pandemic rally last year, the UK’s film and television industry has been knocked back by a perfect storm of falling advertising revenues, the chilling effect of the BBC licence fee freeze and general inflation. So dire is the impact on the amount of work available that the UK’s Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union has declared a state of emergency affecting many of its 40,000 members.
The WGA’s decision not to picket the Tony awards is a recognition that Broadway theatre is itself struggling to get back to full health and needs the shot in the arm that a glamorous televised event will deliver. It is not the act of an irresponsible workforce bent on inflicting damage on its industry, but of a realistic one determined to do what it takes to survive.