Tense times on Broadway

NEW YORK — Broadway faced a tense matinee day Wednesday with no further contract talks scheduled between the League of American Theatres and Producers and Local One, the Broadway stagehands' union.

Shows performed Wednesday, a traditional two-performance day for many productions.

No one is certain what will happen next after both sides on Tuesday presented what they said were their final offers. A lockout by producers is one possibility, a decision that could shut down most, but not all, Broadway productions.

"This is a nervous time for everybody," said Norman Samnick, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in labor relations for Bryan Cave LLP. "Ultimately, it's about the first one to blink."

Both sides seem far apart.

"We are seeking an agreement that addresses the health of the industry," Charlotte St. Martin, the League's executive director, said Wednesday in a statement. "The union's final proposal explicitly moves in the opposite direction, adding indefensible costs that would hurt all Broadway — plays, in particular."

But the union said it had "addressed nearly every item on the producers' list and offered imaginative solutions that met the producers' requests," said James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One, which represents the 350 to 500 stagehands working on Broadway. "What the producers failed to do was recognize our suggestions with exchanges of its own."

Negotiations heated up during the past month, in part because the busy fall season is getting under way and new shows are coming in.

For example, "Cyrano," a revival of Edmond Rostand's classic romance starring Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner, began previews Friday, while this week will see the start of performances for two highly anticipated new plays, "The Farnsworth Invention" by Aaron Sorkin ("The West Wing") and Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll."

The stagehands have been working without a contract since July. The thorniest issue dominating the negotiations are rules governing "load-ins" — putting a show's physical production into a theater.

Producers say the rules are cumbersome and expensive and that they need more leeway to determine how and how many stagehands are needed. League members, who include theater owners, producers and general managers, have reportedly put together a $20 million fund to help some of the less popular shows financially weather a possible shutdown.

A shutdown would affect most commercial Broadway productions but not those produced by such nonprofit organizations as the Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club and Lincoln Center Theater. Also apparently not affected are shows in theaters owned by non-League members, which include the Hilton, where Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" began previews Thursday, and the Disney-owned New Amsterdam, home to "Mary Poppins."

If Broadway shuts down, it would be the first time since 2003, when more than a dozen Broadway shows went dark after Local 802 of the musicians union held a four-day strike.