AEA President Calls Out Delta, Bank of America for Defunding The Public's JULIUS CAESAR

[Omaha Steve]

Source: BroadwayWorld

by BWW News Desk

Kate Shindle, President of Actors' Equity Association, the national labor union representing more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, released the following statement after the news that Delta Airlines and Bank of America had pulled sponsorship from The Public Theater's production of Julius Caesar.

"The Public Theater has a long tradition of producing thoughtful work that is in keeping with one of our most important traditions - the free exchange of ideas under the First Amendment.

"Julius Caesar has always been a provocative piece of theatre that asks the audience to think as well as to feel. Many, many modern-dress productions have used contemporary politicians and public figures to drive home the storylines that Shakespeare wove into his play. It's surprising that this has become so deeply offensive to Delta Airlines, considering that in 2012, Delta sponsored a season in Minneapolis in which the Guthrie Theatre staged a 'Julius Caesar' which featured the killing of an Obama-like figure.

"All this pearl clutching really just indicates how profoundly people are missing the point. Julius Caesar is a cautionary tale about the dangers and consequences of a mob mentality against a ruler. The play actually goes out of its way to make the argument that violence and assassination are not the answer to political problems in a democracy.

FULL story at link below.

Read more: http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/AEA-President-Calls-Out-Delta-Bank-of-America-for-Defunding-The-Publics-JULIUS-CAESAR-20170613

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REPEAT: It's surprising that this has become so deeply offensive to Delta Airlines, considering that in 2012, Delta sponsored a season in Minneapolis in which the Guthrie Theatre staged a 'Julius Caesar' which featured the killing of an Obama-like figure.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Companies like BoA and Delta are very aware of pressure from customers.

Especially big customers. Any big airline like Delta is very sensitive to complaints from large corporate accounts for business travel. I'm curious as to how much pressure they got from their corporate customers. I'm glad they're getting some grief for it, though.

[DK504]

3. I doubt the rubes even had a clue they gave money to the arts.

BoA withdrawing shows exactly where they stand with what they think of the people that actually handle their money. Another reason to dump their sorry asses out back.

Seems all the airlines want people to stop flying and start taking the train or drive. Screw these people.

[Igel]

2. Might I suggest both could be inappropriate?

One doesn't give cover to the other.

[7962]

4. Ahhh, a lone voice of reason.....

Thank God

[Not Ruth]

5. Saw this on the 2nd night

The run closes Sunday. It starts with a bunch of red staters in Make Rome......ball caps. Caesar's wife is an Ivanka copy with a Russian accent. Marc Anthony, in a gender flip, looks a lot more like Melania. Trump bathes with Ivanka and stands up for all to see. Extremely well endowed. The Senate conspires with Antifa to kill Caesar. About 100 Antifa run through the audience, this was great. Marc Anthony and the loyalists machine gun most of the Senate and all of the Antifa to death. The rest of the Senate commit hari kari. It was purposely offensive to just about everyone.

[Retrograde]

6. Antifa? That's a new one to me

I fear I'm falling behind on my political terminology.

Sounds like a good production, though. I saw the Oregon Shakespeare production of Julius Caesar a couple of months ago: there's no getting over the fact that it's a very powerful play about political ambition and its ramifications. Since the assassination leads to civil war, of course it's a violent play: the deaths of Caesar and Cinna reduced a theater full of high school students to silence. And by the end of the play all the conspirators are dead one way or another.

[Not Ruth]

7. They are the anti fascists

The protestors dressed all in black.

In this production, they are very violent, but just as they lived by the sword, so did they die, lined up against a wall and shot.

[ehrnst]

8. In 2012, that theatre did Julius Caesar with an "Obamaesque" Caesar.

No outcry, no pulling of funding.

[Nitram]

9. I'm hoping Trump will lose his rights to every single on of those copyrights when he is

found guilty under the Emoluments clause.