by Keeley Bell. @omgitskeeley.
BIT, IA - When news of the SAG-AFTRA strike hit the small town of Bit, Iowa, local stage manager Edie Saks could not contain her outrage… or confusion.
“Actors? Striking? Never heard of it, “ Saks claimed with a bitter chuckle as she looked off into the distance with a glaze over her eyes. “Actors come to do their little dance on the stage, and then when they’re asked to help take down the set, put props away, or - God forbid - seam rip an old-timey costume to restore it to its original state, they suddenly ‘have somewhere to be in the morning’ and are ‘so sorry but hope you all have fun’. This ‘actors’ strike’ is real Hollywood special effects magic.”
Local elementary school teacher Megan Lane, currently cast as Katherine in the Bit Players’ production of Newsies, spoke up on the allegations made by her stage manager.
“I don’t think Edie understands the difference between the two versions of the word ‘strike’,” Lane explained with the highlighted copy of the book Homophones for Dummies that she keeps in her classroom. “I don’t think she even knows what a union is. When the WGA went on strike, she asked me if that stood for ‘Whole Grain Association.’... and then she asked if they were good at pulling up spike tape.”
We then reached out to the Bit Players’ executive producer and founder, John Yancy, to inquire how he could keep someone so ill-informed on his staff.
“What I love about Edie is her show-focused mind,” Yancy boasted as he donned his costume, ready to reprise his role as Jack Kelly for the sixth time. “To her, a ‘strike’ is about resetting after the run of a show. To her, a ‘company’ is just people that get together to do a show. To her, a ‘CEO’ is me: a sixty-year-old Iowan man who makes a living off of the unpaid labor of my community and gets any role I want in the process. Having someone like Edie on your team is priceless. Literally. We don’t pay her.”
We’re happy to report that after discovering from our team what a union actually is, Edie Saks has realized that unlimited Subway sandwiches on the company dime were not sufficient pay for her seventy-five-hour work week, and has decided to unionize.
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