Media + Entertainment

Ronald Shechtman, Pryor Cashman’s managing partner and Chair of the firm’s Labor and Employment Group, is representing approximately two dozen actors from the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton” in a deal that will bring the original cast members, all of whom belong to Actors’ Equity Association, a share of the smash musical’s profits. Hamilton opened on Broadway in August 2015 to a sold-out audience and reportedly brings in more than $500,000 in weekly profits.

While some of the specifics of the deal are still being negotiated, it has ignited a larger discussion about how actors and dancers who are part of a show’s development and first productions are compensated for those efforts.  Shechtman also noted that the emergence of Broadway megahits, enhanced by premium pricing, raises new issues on how to compensate those artists who contributed to establishing the show’s success.  

Shechtman told the New York Times that the agreement will give the actors a share in “the profit stream from the play,” and further explained to CNN that the deal allows cast members to share in the successes of Hamilton and receive a profit stream from all productions in New York and elsewhere." For the actors, this deal will supplement the base $1,900 a week salary most Broadway performers earn. 

Hamilton is a musical about the life of Alexander Hamilton, with music, lyrics,and book written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It made its Off-Broadway debut at The Public Theater in February 2015, and moved to Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre in August later that year. It has received critical acclaim, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. The Off-Broadway production of Hamilton won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical as well as seven other Drama Desk Awards out of 14 total nominations.

Additional coverage of this monumental deal can be found in Billboard, Crain’s, The New York Daily News, The Hollywood Reporter, Playbill, and other media.