Gloomy Holiday Due to Broadway Strike

After strike talks between the Broadway producers’ league and the stagehands’ union unexpectedly broke down on Sunday night, the quick return to work that many had expected just hours earlier turned into a gloomy prospect of absent paychecks and huge losses during the lucrative holiday season.

Production staffs for the darkened Broadway shows gathered in meetings all day yesterday to map strategies. Last year, Thanksgiving week, one of the busiest on the Broadway calendar, brought in more than $23 million in ticket sales.

No more talks have been scheduled between the producers and the union, but there have been discussions about meeting on Sunday, in hopes of ending the strike before the even-more-lucrative Christmas week draws nearer.

The New York city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., estimated that the city was losing about $2 million per day because of the strike, in the direct loss of ticket sales and in the spillover effect of fewer dinner checks, hotel bills, rounds of drinks, taxi rides and souvenir purchases. But the League of American Theaters and Producers, which includes production costs and theater maintenance in its figure, says it believes a more accurate estimate is about $17 million per day.

The shock came suddenly on Sunday night, when league members and union officials, who had been talking all weekend to try to end the strike that has darkened most of Broadway since Nov. 10, left the Westin hotel without a settlement. The sticking point in the talks has been the league’s desire for looser work rules for members of the union.