I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add addit…
I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the rest of the country has moved on. There are no mask mandates at any level of government on any side of the aisle anywhere in America. There are no mask mandates in most private businesses, public and private schools, nor in all transportation.
LCT's Covid position, like the CDC's, isn’t based on health concerns, rather it’s based on their politics and their need to display their ultra liberal bona fides publicly and loudly. This is why they are among the very last employers of any kind or sort that have these draconian demands still in place.
The face mask is the red MAGA hat for left wing nut jobs.
I cannot help wondering if there are other angles of attack--things which could offer much better leverage in altering these deplorable circumstances--that haven't been thought of, investigated. And, honestly, I don't know what they are.
A better understanding of the effective "pressure points" could help to learn more about how to get effective change sooner than simply leaving such a destructive set of circumstances to degenerate until a change becomes impossible to resist. I think Management are making decisions based on cost-benefit analyses. Their advisors are telling them that the "safe course" is to do what everyone else is doing and keep mask-use in the rules of user, client, access. Restaurants are much less inclined to do this because there is often v. significant competition driving them to keep the customer-base happy. But a symphony orchestra or art gallery or large museum isn't so sensitive to the people visiting--small ticket holders.
They _are_ however, very concerned to keep on the good side of their wealthy donors. How may that lever be approached? If these wealthy donors could be made to think seriously about the genuine hardships which these rules imply for so many people whose livelihoods depend on their submitting to utterly useless mask-requirements, maybe their consciences could be pricked enough to get them to start raising this issue in the formal and informal meetings, telephone calls, video chats, Zoom meetings.
How can that be approached? It seems reasonable to suppose that there are people well enough acquainted with this social arena to know where the possibilities are for a campaign to get the wealthy donor class to develop a better moral awareness of what they're subsidizing.
I'm about as far from that social scene as one can get.
It has been terribly depressing to see the arts fall into the hysteria and groupthink so utterly. I nearly never to go arts and cultural events anymore, because I don’t want to feel like I’m attending a progressive church service. The shows are now all virtue signaling sermons anyway. I went to a play in Atlanta in late 2022, and that company was STILL enforcing masks for audience members. There were 6 people in the audience, and I only stayed because I had a friend in the show, otherwise I would have walked away. I refuse to reward lunacy any longer.
Yep. I’m not going back to the Kennedy Center or any other washington theater or movie theater that demanded masks. I’m not even bothering to check what they are doing now.
Good for you! The more people resist, the more the cost will be placed on the backs of these lunatics. When have they ever put up their own money for anything?
I'm so sorry. And I can well imagine it's hard to turn down an opportunity to play in something like that, or that it could even be a career-limiting decision. I had to go to an retinal specialist recently that involved several visits. This specialist runs a big office with about three patients in play at any given time. There are maybe seven or eight staff assisting in all this. I was forced to wear a mask or not be admitted. When I complained that my N95 mask was steaming up my glasses that they required me to wear for one part of the eye exam, an assistant literally taped it to my face. It was very hard to breath through. At one point the double masked assistant was having trouble with hers and I commented that it must be difficult to wear that eight hours a day. She had a mini-explosion of expressed frustration with it, saying sometimes she felt like she was going to pass out because it would get half saturated with moisture. But she reined it in quickly and back to business. Doesn't want to lose her job, I expect.
Thanks for sharing your story, Peter. Yes, funny how New Yorkers--who, in general, arrogantly presume that they are light years ahead of the rest of us in terms of taste and sophistication--were such suckers for the COVID party line. And like most Leftists, not too good at admitting that they were wrong. Played by the authorities like the rubes they assume the rest of the country to be.
"I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated."
(end quote)
Two key factors "connect" the facts related here: "lawyers advice on liability" and "money"-- or, rather, one thing: "money".
You're going to wear the silly mask because you need your work and its income. The audience doesn't have to wear the silly masks because the box-office (theatre management) knows that, if they tried to require them, there'd be too many empty seats.
I feel for your plight. I've recently re-read Edward Dusenberre's* memoir, "Beethoven for a Later Age" (2016)
This is why I think it’s key for somebody to put together whatever research there is on adverse health effects of masks. That would give the poor orchestra and the “help” in restaurants etc. some leverage. I’m really glad that this piece brings that up a few times, but details would help: “As the Cochrane reviewers disapprovingly note, few of the clinical trials of masks even bothered to collect data on the harmful effects on subjects”
The left is determined to suck the joy out of the arts. They need to apologize for the mere existence of classical music, so this draping of players on a lit stage is a great optic for publicly demonstrating, as you say, their liberal bona fides. I’m sorry you practiced your cello every day since you were three for this BS.
You have to understand that not everybody can do that. It would be nice if circumstance allowed people to afford that. The single moms may be struggling to make ends meet. That said you sometime have to do what you need to do to survive. You don’t have to like it if you have to eat.
maybe in some charles dickens novel, but not in 2023 america with record low unemployment. there are huge numbers of jobs out there, no need to trade in your soul
You work in the arts in NYC. Progressivism is their religion. They are all zealots and lunatics. I saw them masked yesterday - walking around outside on a nice sunny afternoon.
I was an extra on a very popular HBO series recently and it was the same. We had to wear masks the entire day, every day, any time the cameras weren’t rolling. Oh, except for the principle actors. They never wore masks on set, ever. Apparently masks don’t matter if you’re famous.
I hear you. It's everywhere in the arts. I had a similar experience as an extra on the network show. We spent three days on a New Jersey soundstage, everybody masked except the stars.
I was laughing looking at the Camelot press from the other day; 30 actors, +15 more creatives and administrative people from Lincoln Center, none of them masked. On the other half of the same room 25 photographers and reporters all of the masked.
And that is what the modern world is becoming in a nutshell. They want everyone living in "15 minute cities" that they (hope they) won't live in themselves. They want nobody flying but them in their private jets. They don't want anyone living in the greenbelts so they can pretend they are Rousseau in the state of nature when they happen to visit there - if they ever do. It's serfdom all over again. The Enclosure Acts of Britain in every sphere of activity. Each controlled by a relatively small number of people for their own benefit and that of their reciprocal friends.
Appears more like marking and distinguishing the privileged from the non-privileged. I remember seeing photos of the Met Gala. The beautiful people were unmasked. The plebes were masked.
Since this is all about virtue signaling and not health, the arts venues all have different rules for the audience and for backstage workers. Across the city even as audience mandates were lifted, people working backstage continue to mask and test. Many still do.
Most of the work that pays real wages in the city for musicians is under union contracts. The orchestra at Lincoln Center theater will be under a Union
contract. Local 802, the musicians union, might as well be a dog on its back, belly up. If you're playing Broadway shows, there is no elsewhere.
Having said that, it's worth noticing that everyone else at Lincoln Center, that's the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, the ballet, not to mention Carnegie Hall, all of them have ceased mask mandates, & ceased vaccination checks etc.
This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk.
I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the rest of the country has moved on. There are no mask mandates at any level of government on any side of the aisle anywhere in America. There are no mask mandates in most private businesses, public and private schools, nor in all transportation.
LCT's Covid position, like the CDC's, isn’t based on health concerns, rather it’s based on their politics and their need to display their ultra liberal bona fides publicly and loudly. This is why they are among the very last employers of any kind or sort that have these draconian demands still in place.
The face mask is the red MAGA hat for left wing nut jobs.
I cannot help wondering if there are other angles of attack--things which could offer much better leverage in altering these deplorable circumstances--that haven't been thought of, investigated. And, honestly, I don't know what they are.
A better understanding of the effective "pressure points" could help to learn more about how to get effective change sooner than simply leaving such a destructive set of circumstances to degenerate until a change becomes impossible to resist. I think Management are making decisions based on cost-benefit analyses. Their advisors are telling them that the "safe course" is to do what everyone else is doing and keep mask-use in the rules of user, client, access. Restaurants are much less inclined to do this because there is often v. significant competition driving them to keep the customer-base happy. But a symphony orchestra or art gallery or large museum isn't so sensitive to the people visiting--small ticket holders.
They _are_ however, very concerned to keep on the good side of their wealthy donors. How may that lever be approached? If these wealthy donors could be made to think seriously about the genuine hardships which these rules imply for so many people whose livelihoods depend on their submitting to utterly useless mask-requirements, maybe their consciences could be pricked enough to get them to start raising this issue in the formal and informal meetings, telephone calls, video chats, Zoom meetings.
How can that be approached? It seems reasonable to suppose that there are people well enough acquainted with this social arena to know where the possibilities are for a campaign to get the wealthy donor class to develop a better moral awareness of what they're subsidizing.
I'm about as far from that social scene as one can get.
Any ideas from the readers here?
It has been terribly depressing to see the arts fall into the hysteria and groupthink so utterly. I nearly never to go arts and cultural events anymore, because I don’t want to feel like I’m attending a progressive church service. The shows are now all virtue signaling sermons anyway. I went to a play in Atlanta in late 2022, and that company was STILL enforcing masks for audience members. There were 6 people in the audience, and I only stayed because I had a friend in the show, otherwise I would have walked away. I refuse to reward lunacy any longer.
Yep. I’m not going back to the Kennedy Center or any other washington theater or movie theater that demanded masks. I’m not even bothering to check what they are doing now.
Good for you! The more people resist, the more the cost will be placed on the backs of these lunatics. When have they ever put up their own money for anything?
I'm so sorry. And I can well imagine it's hard to turn down an opportunity to play in something like that, or that it could even be a career-limiting decision. I had to go to an retinal specialist recently that involved several visits. This specialist runs a big office with about three patients in play at any given time. There are maybe seven or eight staff assisting in all this. I was forced to wear a mask or not be admitted. When I complained that my N95 mask was steaming up my glasses that they required me to wear for one part of the eye exam, an assistant literally taped it to my face. It was very hard to breath through. At one point the double masked assistant was having trouble with hers and I commented that it must be difficult to wear that eight hours a day. She had a mini-explosion of expressed frustration with it, saying sometimes she felt like she was going to pass out because it would get half saturated with moisture. But she reined it in quickly and back to business. Doesn't want to lose her job, I expect.
Thanks for sharing your story, Peter. Yes, funny how New Yorkers--who, in general, arrogantly presume that they are light years ahead of the rest of us in terms of taste and sophistication--were such suckers for the COVID party line. And like most Leftists, not too good at admitting that they were wrong. Played by the authorities like the rubes they assume the rest of the country to be.
Re: Peter Sachon's
(quote)
"I start work this week playing cello at the new Lincoln Center Theater production of Camelot. They require masking at all times, only and exclusively wearing the specific N95 mask that they supply. They require regular Covid testing before and during employment, and they require us to inform them when we travel so that they may add additional testing. If the Covid policy they emailed us is to be believed, they also require musicians to have had all booster shots as a requirement of employment.
The audience will be unmasked and will not even have to prove that hey have been vaccinated."
(end quote)
Two key factors "connect" the facts related here: "lawyers advice on liability" and "money"-- or, rather, one thing: "money".
You're going to wear the silly mask because you need your work and its income. The audience doesn't have to wear the silly masks because the box-office (theatre management) knows that, if they tried to require them, there'd be too many empty seats.
I feel for your plight. I've recently re-read Edward Dusenberre's* memoir, "Beethoven for a Later Age" (2016)
* (first violinist, Takács Quartet.)
Sadly the way to stop this nonsense is to not buy tickets.
This is why I think it’s key for somebody to put together whatever research there is on adverse health effects of masks. That would give the poor orchestra and the “help” in restaurants etc. some leverage. I’m really glad that this piece brings that up a few times, but details would help: “As the Cochrane reviewers disapprovingly note, few of the clinical trials of masks even bothered to collect data on the harmful effects on subjects”
I think the orchestra just needs to say "no thank you". Then hand these jokers their instruments and then take their seat in the audience.
The left is determined to suck the joy out of the arts. They need to apologize for the mere existence of classical music, so this draping of players on a lit stage is a great optic for publicly demonstrating, as you say, their liberal bona fides. I’m sorry you practiced your cello every day since you were three for this BS.
I could never work for this employer, even if my dream job. If that isn’t total control over you, nothing is.
You have to understand that not everybody can do that. It would be nice if circumstance allowed people to afford that. The single moms may be struggling to make ends meet. That said you sometime have to do what you need to do to survive. You don’t have to like it if you have to eat.
" You don’t have to like it if you have to eat."
maybe in some charles dickens novel, but not in 2023 america with record low unemployment. there are huge numbers of jobs out there, no need to trade in your soul
You work in the arts in NYC. Progressivism is their religion. They are all zealots and lunatics. I saw them masked yesterday - walking around outside on a nice sunny afternoon.
As an RN, it always amused me when I would see people with masks on while walking outside or while driving ALONE in their cars. Nuts.
Theresa,
how about this one:
women who use the personal pronoun "their" when referring to _one_ female individual or several individuals, _all_ of whom are _female_?
_That_ is herd-mentality on stilts.
"First they came for our traditional pronoun usage,..."
-------------------------------
P.S. I loved your profile-comment, "I don't know where I belong politically...".
You speak for millions of people in that.
Smack dab in the middle - where you are needed.
Sad
I was an extra on a very popular HBO series recently and it was the same. We had to wear masks the entire day, every day, any time the cameras weren’t rolling. Oh, except for the principle actors. They never wore masks on set, ever. Apparently masks don’t matter if you’re famous.
They are protecting the famous people from you. The analogy is with surgeons - they are the patients.
Natch'.
Your story is a great example of the elitism behind so much of the Left’s agenda. This is more about class than anything.
I hear you. It's everywhere in the arts. I had a similar experience as an extra on the network show. We spent three days on a New Jersey soundstage, everybody masked except the stars.
I was laughing looking at the Camelot press from the other day; 30 actors, +15 more creatives and administrative people from Lincoln Center, none of them masked. On the other half of the same room 25 photographers and reporters all of the masked.
It's virtue signaling, and it's disgusting.
And that is what the modern world is becoming in a nutshell. They want everyone living in "15 minute cities" that they (hope they) won't live in themselves. They want nobody flying but them in their private jets. They don't want anyone living in the greenbelts so they can pretend they are Rousseau in the state of nature when they happen to visit there - if they ever do. It's serfdom all over again. The Enclosure Acts of Britain in every sphere of activity. Each controlled by a relatively small number of people for their own benefit and that of their reciprocal friends.
Appears more like marking and distinguishing the privileged from the non-privileged. I remember seeing photos of the Met Gala. The beautiful people were unmasked. The plebes were masked.
IOW they are like dogs marking their territory? I think we should rename it submission signaling.
Interesting thought.
I was at the NYC ballet last week. Masks not required but "strongly encouraged."
Few wore them. But those who did, did so virtuously.
Yeah you said you were going did you enjoy the ballet?
Since this is all about virtue signaling and not health, the arts venues all have different rules for the audience and for backstage workers. Across the city even as audience mandates were lifted, people working backstage continue to mask and test. Many still do.
That speaks volumes to the politics of your benefactors.
And you are willing to work under these circumstances because....? You are clearly a gifted musician of a caliber to be employable elsewhere.
Most of the work that pays real wages in the city for musicians is under union contracts. The orchestra at Lincoln Center theater will be under a Union
contract. Local 802, the musicians union, might as well be a dog on its back, belly up. If you're playing Broadway shows, there is no elsewhere.
Having said that, it's worth noticing that everyone else at Lincoln Center, that's the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, the ballet, not to mention Carnegie Hall, all of them have ceased mask mandates, & ceased vaccination checks etc.
This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk.
"This is nothing more than actors and theater people virtue signaling for each other. It's a big circle jerk."
having to work in an environment like that would be intolerable to me. you must have to lie constantly, about everything. how humiliating!